Andrew Barsness was 21 years old, a college freshman trying out a major in music and pottery, when his grandparents passed, leaving behind a central Minnesota farm in want of a farmer.
With no agricultural experience, he decided to give it a try, supported by copious notes his grandfather left behind and a mother who taught him about crop insurance and how to drive a tractor.
He promptly fell in love with the land.
Andrew Barsness uses his teeth to check the amount of moisture in freshly harvested certified organic corn from his fields. (Photo Credit Masha Hamilton)
Now, 14 years later, he is part of a younger generation moving toward regenerative and organic practices on his 900 acres, with 270 acres already certified organic and the rest in transition. Part of what is making it work? Critical financial and mentoring support.
To go organic, farmers must eliminate all use of prohibited chemicals for at least three years, maintain detailed records of farming practices, inputs, and sales for a minimum of five years, establish buffer zones to prevent contamination from non-organic sources, and pay for annual on-site inspections. Most also must purchase new equipment to help remove weeds without chemicals.
This process puts farmers in a bind: Having gone cold turkey from agrichemicals, their yields plummet and they have new expenses, but they get no price premium for their trouble until Year Four. In fact, their earnings shrink.
“Taking this to conventional lenders felt frustrating,” Barsness said. “I was a novice, without a decades-long track record. And traditional lenders usually don’t understand the switch to regenerative — I might as well have been growing bananas and oranges instead of corn and soy. They were skeptical of yields and profitability even once I went organic.”
Meet Andrew Barsness, a young farmer giving up chemical inputs and making the transition to regenerative and organic practices. The first years are economically challenging, but Mad Capital is making it possible.
Though Barsness’s approach to farming is different from his grandfather’s, he says he is continuing a family legacy of caring for the land.
His journey from accidental farmer to organic pioneer highlights the determination and innovation required to farm sustainably in today’s world — especially when traditional systems don’t always understand the mission.
Financing Tailored Farm-by-Farm
Mad Capital, supported by The Rockefeller Foundation, is the sister company of Mad Agriculture, a nonprofit which provides mentoring to farmers transitioning their lands off chemicals.
In the early days of farming, Andrew Barsness often referred to notes his grandfather took.
The food system today contributes 25 percent of all global greenhouse gas emissions. Conventional farming practices have contributed to soil erosion, water pollution, and deforestation, while harming biodiversity.
For farmers taking on the journey to regenerative and organic, Mad Capital tailor-fits financing, said Brandon Welch, Mad Capital’s cofounder and CEO.
“We offer long-term flexible lending, beginning with a five-year interest-only loan to help them through the three-year transition period before they are certified organic, and during a time when their yields and profits often decrease,” said Welch.
“Then at Year Five, we restructure on a payment schedule that works with the individual farm and the farmer’s crop rotation. We’ve helped 4,100 acres reach certified organic in just over three years, and over 18,000 acres are in transition right now.”
Welch decided to dedicate his life to protecting the planet and ecology after a 2014 hike on the 273-mile Long Trail that bisects Vermont and follows the main ridge of the Green Mountains.
In 2017, he began a conversation with Phil Taylor, the executive director and co-founder of Mad Agriculture, about how to motivate farmers to help sequester carbon and fight against a climate calamity, leading to the birth of Mad Capital.
“We decided to join forces,” he recalled. “We journeyed across the country on numerous road trips to identify pain points and barrier for farmers interested in going regenerative organic.”
A view from the combine during a wheat harvest on the Barsness farm. (Photo Courtesy of Andrew Barsness)
While every farm is different and most farmers struggle with only one or two of these barriers, Welch found three key patterns emerged:
- Farmers weren’t sure how to make the transition.
- They didn’t know where to find the markets.
- They didn’t have access to the financing to manage the transitional period.
Focused on the financing side, the Mad Capital team is making remarkable strides. They launched with a $10 million pilot fund; the second fund is targeted to reach $50 million, and by the end of 2025, Mad Capital intends to have over $80 million in assets under management. In 2026, the focus will be on raising $250 million to help farmers go regenerative organic.
A New Generation Takes Root
Barsness is among the nine percent of U.S. farmers under the age of 35 — the average age is 58. Farmers older than 65 increased by 12 percent between 2017 and 2022.
This trend is a cause for concern. “The aging of farmers on top of regulatory, economic, and foreign pressures puts the future of the nation and world’s food supply in peril,” stated Feeding the Future, a report from the U.S. Senate Committee on Aging.
Access to land and capital are among the key barriers to entry for young farmers. Equipment is expensive — a new combine, for instance, can cost close to $1 million with heads for a couple different crops.
At the same time, the changing climate has made farming more difficult due to unpredictable and more extreme weather patterns. Farming, always risky, can feel even riskier. That’s one reason to farm sustainably — it builds resilience.
Though Barsness was not drawn to farming as a child or teenager, he is sure now that he’s found the life he wants to lead, despite the stress, uncertainties, and days that can stretch to 15 hours or more.
“Every season and every day is different,” he said.
“You get to work with your hands in the natural world. Farming is also cerebral, and creative, and entrepreneurial. I value the sense of building something. I can’t imagine doing anything else. It fits me like a glove.”
He’s grateful, too, for the notebooks his grandfather left behind filled with scrawled records documenting the life of the farm — when fields were tilled, planted, and harvested, weather patterns, and countless other details.
Recently engaged to be married, he lives in the century-old home that belonged to his grandparents, where he visited and played as a child. He has a piano tucked into the kitchen and a pottery shed taking shape outside.
Barsness often feels his grandfather’s presence. Many tools and pieces of equipment remain exactly as his grandfather left them.
“Every bolt represents a project, a story, a moment in time,” he mused while standing before his grandfather’s workbench.
Although he is the first in his family to venture into regenerative organic agriculture, he feels that, too, is continuing a family tradition.
“My grandfather was a good steward of the land,” he said. “I want to be the same.”
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