DCVC DTOR 2025: For the environment and for our health, we must learn to produce more food, more efficiently

We mentioned earlier in this report that our portfolio company CH4 Global makes a seaweed-based additive for cattle feed that alters their digestion, drastically reducing the amount of methane they belch up. That’s just one example of the kind of innovative agtech company we look for. Sometimes these firms are using the tools of biotech; sometimes they’re advancing the state of the art in hardware or robotics.

One of the biggest envi­ron­mental stressors from modern agriculture is the production of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer. The traditional Haber-Bosch process for pulling nitrogen from the atmosphere and storing it as ammonia dates back to 1913 and has been an enormous boon, allowing farmers to turn unpro­duc­tive land into fertile fields that have helped to feed billions of people. Unfor­tu­nately, the process requires immense supplies of electricity, as well as fossil feedstocks such as natural gas; overall, fertilizer production is responsible for about 2 percent of global CO₂ emissions. On top of that, excessive use of synthetic fertilizers pollutes waterways with nitrogen runoff and releases vast amounts of the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide (N₂O) — an even bigger contributor to climate change, in CO₂-equivalent terms, than methane from cattle.

Pivot Bio, which we’ve backed since 2014, offers an alternative. The company identified strains of bacteria that live in the rhizomes of crops such as soybeans and turned off genetic brakes on nitrogen fixation, enabling them to make natural ammonia fertilizer from the air. Peer-reviewed studies published in 2024 and 2025 showed that the microbes in Pivot’s PROVEN 40 additive deliver an extra 35 to 40 pounds of nitrogen per acre. Farmers who inoculate their soil with PROVEN 40 can buy that much less synthetic fertilizer from traditional suppliers, while also lowering N2O emissions from their fields. 

Another way farmers can use less synthetic fertilizer and pesticides is to apply them more precisely. We backed Blue River Technology, which created a sprayer attachment for tractors that uses computer vision and machine learning to tell crops from weeds and apply herbicides only when needed. John Deere bought the company in 2017 and sells the system under its See & Spray brand. In 2019 DCVC Bio followed on with an investment in Verdant Robotics, a kind of big brother to Blue River, and we have also backed Sabanto, whose automation packages turn the tractor already in the farmer’s barn into an autonomous vehicle. With robot tractors, farmers can mow, till, aerate, or seed their fields with higher precision and a fraction of the labor. Our most recent investment in this area is in AgZen, a DCVC Bio company that uses AI and computer vision to monitor whether crop protection and fertilizers are reaching their intended targets; the system helps farmers improve yields, safety, and compliance, while using 30 to 50 percent less chemistry. 

Pasture-based livestock farming or ​“regen­er­a­tive grazing” is yet another burgeoning form of sustainable, planet-friendly agriculture. It’s a humane alternative to confined feeding operations that allows grassfed animals to graze freely on pasture, where they naturally aerate and fertilize the soil and promote carbon seques­tra­tion. A DCVC company called Halter makes wireless, solar-powered smart collars that use sounds, vibrations, and low-energy pulses to train grassfed dairy and beef cattle to stay inside a movable virtual fence line. When it’s time to rotate to a new pasture, farmers simply redraw the lines. The system also allows farmers to shift cows off poor terrain or eroded areas, monitor individual animals for health changes, and allocate the right amount of grass per cow, maximizing milk production. Just as with CH4, Pivot, Blue River, Verdant, and Sabanto, Halter’s technology helps farmers work more intel­li­gently and profitably while making their operations more envi­ron­men­tally friendly and sustainable.