Soil Systems Discovery: A Better Earth (Ad)Venture

19 January 2026 - There’s a stretch of road between Chiang Mai and Pai that refuses to be rushed. The curves come one after another, climbing into cooler air, quietly insisting on attention.

That road framed our most recent Better Earth Ventures Climate Expedition, connecting a series of places where conversations deepened and understanding shifted. Long hours together created space for dialogue to unfold naturally. People from very different backgrounds found common ground in something simple, yet fundamental: food, and how it comes to be.

At the heart of our Climate Expeditions is a clear intent: to bridge the gap between what you understand from a pitch deck and the lived realities of climate startup value chains on the ground. These journeys are designed to give the innovation ecosystem a grounded intuition for what it truly takes to build and scale climate solutions, and in doing so, reshape how we think about strengthening food systems and the farming communities behind them.

Our first stop was Living Roots, just outside Chiang Mai, one of Better Earth Ventures’ portfolio companies. Seeing Abhi Agarwal and Avika Narula's work in context brings a deeper understanding, not just of the technology, but of the operational, environmental, and human realities behind it.

The conversation began with soil, not as an abstract concept, but as a living system (which we witnessed for ourselves under a microscope). Healthy plants, when properly nourished and biologically supported, are less attractive to pests even without pesticides. Insects seek out stressed crops. Strong plants simply don’t send the same signals.

That insight came with a harder truth. Farming regeneratively in the middle of chemically farmed land can increase pressure rather than reduce it. Pests displaced by spraying don’t disappear. They concentrate. Doing the right thing alone can make the work harder, not easier. It became clear why regeneration works best when it’s collective, and why system-level change matters far more than isolated effort.

From there, we travelled north toward Pai to visit farms and projects that brought these themes into sharper focus. The journey itself became part of the learning, not because of the kilometres covered, but because of the reflection it enabled. Progress in system change is rarely smooth. Sometimes you slow down. Sometimes you adjust course. Sometimes getting there simply takes longer than expected.

At Pai Seedlings Foundation, we were welcomed onto a nearly one-hectare farm by Damien P. Masselis and Lyse Kong that, ten years ago, was essentially lifeless. Today, it is a layered ecosystem of vegetables, trees, animals, compost systems, and people tending to it with care.

One moment stayed with many of us. The farm is a place where children from the community run freely, touching leaves, picking produce, eating straight from the ground without hesitation. That freedom exists because there are no toxic inputs here. No masks. No protective suits. No warning signs. Just trust in a system rebuilt patiently over time.

Later conversations with smallholder farmers who had previously practised chemical farming made the contrast stark. In those systems, even entering the field requires protection. 

As we walked the land, we heard openly about how long this transformation took. The early years were brutal. Crops failed. Yields were low. For six or seven years, up to half of what was planted was lost. But the commitment remained, with investment not only in crops, but in soil life: fungi, bacteria, protozoa, nematode, and in the farmers. 

That lesson became tangible when we turned a compost pile together. Inside, temperatures reached close to 70°C. Compost at that heat is alive and active, and if mismanaged, capable of starting fires. Regeneration is not passive. It is energetic, demanding, and requires constant attention.

Lunch came from surrounding farms. As we ate, conversations turned to pricing. Organic farming involves more labour, more uncertainty, and far more patience, yet farmers often receive only a modest premium, sometimes as little as 15 percent. Seen in this context, the idea that organic food is expensive feels disconnected from reality. If anything, it is underpriced for the work and risk involved.

During our Q&A session with the Hill Tribe smallholder farmers, one question from them landed with unexpected weight: “How do you grow food where you come from?”

There was a pause. Then an honest answer: “We don’t. We import it.”

That moment captured a broader reckoning. As a society, we are deeply disconnected from the act of growing food. Standing on land that had taken a decade to heal, that distance felt suddenly very real.

What this expedition left us with was not a single takeaway, but an accumulation of conversations. In vans between visits. Over shared meals. Walking slowly through fields. Side by side in the realities of smallholder farming. People listening more carefully. Asking better questions. Sitting with complexity rather than rushing to solutions.

Regenerative agriculture asks for long timelines. Five, ten, fifteen years before benefits fully emerge. It asks farmers to absorb risk, often unfairly. It requires collective action and the relearning of practices lost to speed and scale. And it asks the rest of us, investors, ecosystem builders, policymakers, and consumers, to rethink what we value and how we support those transitions.

That winding road through the mountains did more than connect places. It created the space to notice what matters. The farms revealed the real trade-offs behind regenerative agriculture: time over speed, resilience over short-term yield, collective action over isolated effort. The people reminded us that building a better Earth is not a slogan. It is a shared, patient effort, carried forward through relationships, systems, and seasons.

And perhaps that is where real change begins.

A big thank you to our incredible participants who made this expedition possible through their openness, thoughtfulness, and genuine engagement at every stop along the way.

If you’d like to sign up to be notified about future Better Earth Climate Expeditions, you can do so here.