Opportunity Zone Fund for Sustainable Agriculture

Posted on July 14, 2019 by Taylor in Funding, Rural Development, Sustainable Agriculture // 0 Comments

Harvest Returns Opportunity Zone Fund for Sustainable Agriculture

Harvest Returns, an investment platform for agriculture, has launched the Sustainable Agriculture Opportunity Zone Fund to create a positive impact for farmers in Qualified Opportunity Zones (QOZs).

The federal government’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 established the QOZ provisions to stimulate economic development. These provisions provide potentially significant tax benefits to investors who re-invest capital gains into long-term investments in QOZs.

The Sustainable Agriculture Opportunity Zone Fund will invest in agriculture businesses across economically disadvantaged regions of the United States and provide investors with tax-favorable risk-adjusted returns in non-correlated assets. The fund’s investment objective is to achieve tax-advantaged capital appreciation in agricultural projects that are economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable.

“Investments in farming and agriculture are a natural fit for Opportunity Zone Funds,” said Chris Rawley, CEO of Harvest Returns. “Our Opportunity Zone Fund is unique in that it is one of the very few funds not focused on urban commercial real estate. Most of these investments are betting on gentrification of the surrounding neighborhood. Our fund is primarily focused on bringing capital to farmers in rural areas. About 40 percent of the designated opportunity zones are located in rural areas across the United States. These areas present an untapped opportunity for job creation and to strengthen the food system with investments in sustainable agriculture.”

Harvest Returns has assembled a highly experienced group of agriculturalists and investment professionals to manage the fund. The company has teamed with FoodFutureCo, a veteran food and agri-tech fund manager.

“We believe this is a critical step toward mainstreaming agriculture investment,” said Shen Tong, Managing Director of FoodFutureCo. “Agriculture, especially sustainable and regenerative agriculture, is following innovations in good food trends to become the biggest opportunity since the Internet for investors. Harvest Returns’ team knows how to work with farmers to produce superior investment outcomes. The combined team of Harvest Returns and the FoodFutureCo community will make the new QOZ fund a leading catalyst force in this emerging space.”

Discussing the fund’s deal pipeline, Rawley comments that “we have spoken to dozens of farmers representing over $245 million in assets. Our experience conducting due diligence on agriculture projects will enable us to select only the highest quality businesses for this fund.”

About Harvest Returns
Headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, Harvest Returns, LLC is a financial technology company created in 2016 by two military veterans to bring agricultural producers together with investors. By democratizing the agriculture investment process, the online platform provides curated, diversified offerings of farms, ranches, and timberland to qualified investors.

About FoodFutureCo
Based in New York City, FoodFutureCo is a scale-up accelerator program designed to support and fuel the growth of mission-driven food and agriculture companies. We recognize that while the task of launching a company is certainly not an easy one, the real challenge begins once some success is achieved, and having the right advisors and resources is even more critical. Our goal is to be a thought partner to companies during this “scary chasm” phase of its lifecycle. FoodFutureCo invests in portfolio companies of accelerator graduates from its own capital and managed pool of investment affiliates. Partners of FoodFutureCo & Fund have previous founded Food-X accelerator with multiple top tier fund management experiences, over 50 food agriculture investments, and multiple significant exits.

For more information, please visit harvestreturns.com/opportunity-zone-fund.