Latest news with #USDA-guaranteed
Business Wire
07-08-2025
- Business
- Business Wire
AeroFarms® Raises Equity to Fund Pre-Construction Activities for Second Farm;
BUSINESS WIRE)-- AeroFarms, an indoor vertical farming company and the leading supplier of microgreens to the U.S. retail market, has refinanced its debt to support the ongoing operations at its farm in Danville, Virginia, and has raised equity financing to further support existing operations and fund pre-construction activities for its expansion to a second farm. AeroFarms has refinanced its debt to support ongoing operations at its farm in Danville, Virginia, and has raised equity financing to fund pre-construction activities for its expansion to a second farm. 'Our vision is to provide local food production of nutritious microgreens to regions around the world, while preserving natural resources,' said Molly Montgomery, Executive Chair and CEO of AeroFarms. 'We have recently demonstrated that vertical farming can indeed be sustainable, profitable, and produce fresh greens at scale. I would like to extend my gratitude to our financial partners who believe in our vision and have provided financing to support our operation in Danville and commencement of pre-construction activities for expansion to a second farm.' Equity was provided by existing investors including Grosvenor Food & AgTech (GFA), Ingka Investments, Cibus Capital, and ACEG, and others. 'We believe AeroFarms can play a significant role in the global fresh food supply chain, by providing nutritious greens at scale to local regions around the world,' said Stephan Dolezalek, Managing Partner of GFA. 'AeroFarms has now proven the ability to deliver the transformative benefits of vertical farming through a viable, profitable business. To support these efforts, GFA, along with our investing partners, committed funding to support existing operations and enable the company to embark on its next phase of growth.' An asset-based loan provided by Siguler Guff was used to fully pay off the previous debt facility from Horizon Technology Finance, with additional funds to support ongoing operations at the Danville Farm. The new loan, which closed in May 2025, provides a more favorable interest rate than the previous debt, interest-only terms, and a carve-out for eligible equipment financing. Matthew Bernstein, Managing Director in Siguler Guff's Credit and Special Situations Strategy, stated, 'We are excited to partner with AeroFarms in Danville, Virginia, to help them reach their full operational capacity.' Siguler Guff joined with one of the top USDA Guaranteed lenders in the space to provide interim financing that will bridge the company until the permanent, USDA-guaranteed loan is expected to close later this year by that lender. Waterside Commercial Finance served as the exclusive USDA finance advisor to AeroFarms, leveraging its proprietary Bridge-to-USDA Program to structure the transaction. Waterside originated the opportunity, led the underwriting process, coordinated the bridge loan, and sourced the permanent USDA lender. Learn more about AeroFarms at About AeroFarms New AeroFarms, Inc. is an indoor vertical farming company and the leading U.S. provider of microgreens, commanding over 70% of the retail market share. 1 AeroFarms is at the forefront of sustainable agriculture, leveraging patented aeroponics technology, automated conveyance systems, robotics, and AI to cultivate healthy microgreens that thrive. AeroFarms uses 100% renewable energy and is climate-agnostic, growing plants year-round, regardless of geography and weather conditions. AeroFarms uses 230x less land and 90% less water than traditional field farming. As a Certified B Corporation, AeroFarms is dedicated to meeting rigorous standards of social and environmental performance. Learn more and find AeroFarms microgreens nearby at About Grosvenor Food & AgTech Grosvenor Food & AgTech is an active investor in companies that are reshaping food and agriculture around the world – for the better. We identify entrepreneurs and businesses rethinking how food is produced, distributed, and consumed, supporting their growth as lead investors and highly engaged board members. With one of the longest established investment teams in the sector, we actively manage a portfolio of over 20 companies, helping them lead positive change in a way that enhances human health and the natural environment, enabling the economic sustainability of farming and food production. To learn more about GFA, please visit About Siguler Guff Siguler Guff is a multi-strategy private markets investment firm with approximately $17 billion of assets under management and 30 years of investment experience. Siguler Guff seeks to generate strong, risk-adjusted returns by focusing opportunistically on market niches. Siguler Guff's core investment strategies include private credit and special situations, small business private equity, real estate, and emerging markets. Siguler Guff's investment products include direct investment funds, multi-manager funds and customized separate accounts targeting specific areas of compelling opportunity. Founded in 1991 and headquartered in New York, Siguler Guff maintains offices in Boston, Hong Kong, London, Mumbai, São Paulo, Seoul, Shanghai, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo, Houston, TX, and West Palm Beach, FL. To learn more about Siguler Guff, please visit About Waterside Commercial Finance, Inc.: Waterside is a USDA lender service provider focused on originating and structuring USDA-backed commercial loans. Through its Bridge-to-USDA Program and institutional partnerships, Waterside delivers flexible, non-dilutive financing for rural and impact-focused businesses across the U.S. For more information, visit Sources 1. NielsenIQ Latest 52 Weeks W/E 3/15/25 and internal AeroFarms calculations.
Yahoo
02-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Small Farmers Are Struggling With Trumpian Chaos—and Bracing for More
Fielding phone calls from concerned growers has become a commonplace occurrence for Nick Levendofsky, the executive director of the Kansas Farmers Union. The upheaval in the U.S. Department of Agriculture since President Donald Trump took office in January has left many farmers with unfulfilled contracts and broken commitments. Grants that once offered vital financial lifelines have been frozen. Programs that once provided assistance and aid have been eliminated. Uncertainty about the future has become the bumper crop. 'It's just been a barrage from the very beginning,' said Levendofsky of the changes made by the Trump administration. 'We were getting phone calls from not just members of ours, but farmers and ranchers in general, saying, 'What do we do?'' He recalled a recent conversation with the owner of a vineyard in northeastern Kansas who had been promised a loan to build solar panels and an electric vehicle charger. But with USDA freezing funding for the renewable energy projects guaranteed by the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act, the farmer was stuck with the bill for the already completed project. 'He had a $55,000 USDA-guaranteed loan that now USDA said, 'We're not going to pay,'' said Levendofsky. In April, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to release the previously authorized frozen funds. That same month, however, the USDA canceled the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities, a separate grant program intended to promote sustainable farming and forestry practices. The administration repackaged that grant as 'Advancing Markets for Producers,' with existing agreements under review. The Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association, or MOFGA, was among the organizations affected by these changes. The group had a multiyear grant from the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities program, said executive director Sarah Alexander. Along with another Maine-based group, MOFGA was slated to work with 200 farms in the state to assess whether they met certain criteria to receive funds for improving climate resiliency. 'That money has gone away, and that's been really devastating,' said Alexander. 'That's a really direct impact that's both on our budget and work this year with our staff's [ability] to provide direct training and technical assistance to those farms, but then also the farms ultimately losing out on that money.' The USDA announced in March that it would issue up to $10 billion in relief for commodity producers for the 2024 crop year, and the White House has mulled additional financial assistance for farmers to mitigate potential effects from tariffs. During Trump's first term, USDA doled out roughly $23 billion in aid to farmers amid retaliatory Chinese tariffs on certain American imports, including wheat, soybeans, and corn. Given the current uncertainty surrounding the tariffs that Trump can and may impose—and the status of ongoing trade negotiations with China—it's unclear what kind of financial assistance farmers can expect this time around, if any. But Erin Foster West, policy director at the National Young Farmers Coalition, said that programs intended to help commodity farmers have less of an impact for smaller-scale producers. Meanwhile, the USDA has eliminated the Local Food Purchase Assistance program, which connected small farmers to community food pantries and anti-hunger organizations, as well as the Local Food for Schools program, which allowed schools and childcare facilities to purchase food from local farms. West said that the LFPA had been particularly helpful for members of her organization at the beginning of their careers. 'Many were using that as sort of a bridge as they were growing or expanding, and didn't expect to have that forever but expected to have it for maybe a few more years,' said West. 'Now it feels like the rug has just been pulled out from underneath them without any notice, without any support, without any communication.' Producers also highlight the stalling of farm bill negotiations in Congress as a major source of worry. Typically approved every five years, the farm bill governs the country's nutrition, agricultural, conservation, and forestry policy and is historically passed on a bipartisan basis. However, the 2018 farm bill has been extended twice—most recently at the end of last year—and discussions among lawmakers on crafting the new measure have been largely stagnant. Meanwhile, some of the agenda items that would typically be included in the farm bill are instead being addressed by the One Big, Beautiful Bill Act, the massive Republican legislative package including tax breaks and dramatic cuts to government spending. The bill, which narrowly passed in the House last week, slashes nearly $300 billion from nutrition programs, but includes roughly $60 billion for farm safety-net programs. The measure—which is moving through a process known as 'budget reconciliation' to avoid the 60-vote threshold for approving legislation in the upper chamber—is now under consideration in the Senate. The changes to SNAP include tightened work requirements, which the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated would lead to more than three million recipients losing their benefits in an average month. The bill would also push more of the cost of SNAP onto states, which the CBO estimates could lead to reduced or loss of benefits for around 1.3 million people. Alexander argued that the farm bill was the preferred venue for hashing out nutrition and farm policy. 'They are two sides of the same coin because the food that we're producing in this country should be what is feeding our citizens,' she said. 'SNAP at its essence should be supporting what our farmers are producing.' Farmers and their communities are thus concerned not only about changes in the USDA, but how that upheaval might be compounded by changes to SNAP. Nichelle Harriott, policy director at HEAL Food Alliance, a coalition of organizations that work directly with farming and food systems, said that member groups were now floundering amid the uncertainty on the executive and legislative level. 'We have a member in Georgia, for instance, who the entirety of their work is to ensure that vulnerable children in their communities have access to healthy nutrition. And of course, with the absence of federal funding to do that work—as well as the impending cuts of SNAP—they are really seeing increasing challenges,' said Harriott. If would-be SNAP recipients do not have the benefits to spend at their grocery stores, she said, and small producers also cannot share their crops, there will be 'a lot of ripple effects in local communities.' Levendofsky expressed frustration that many of the people who would be most affected by this double whammy of changes live in rural areas—both producers and SNAP recipients. Rural Americans have consistently higher rates of food insecurity, and non-metro areas have higher rates of participation in SNAP than their urban counterparts. 'We're hurting the very people who have voted for so many of these folks in Congress, and even folks that voted for this administration,' said Levendofsky. 'I'm nervous about what's coming because I think, especially, the folks that supported this administration in the last election didn't feel like they were going to be affected. I think they probably felt like this was, you know, a 'safe' bet or vote for them, and that it wasn't gonna be a problem. Well, it's about to be a problem.'
