What kind of agriculture businesses does Steward work with?
Regenerative agriculture businesses that produce or raise food, commodities, or other agricultural products of high economic importance for direct sale. This includes but is not limited to:
- Diversified fruit & vegetable farms
- Livestock ranches (cattle, bison, sheep, poultry, etc.)
- Sustainable fisheries (ocean farming & aquaculture)
- Regenerative foods, textiles, and fibers
- Food system infrastructure (food hubs & processors)
Steward loans fund projects that are:
- Regenerative - practices that increase biodiversity, enrich soils, improve watershed health, sequester more carbon than they release, and enhance ecosystem services.
- Sustainable - holistic approaches that sustain working lands, natural resources, and local communities.
- Human-scale - operations that engage more “hands on the land”, establishing a productive and restorative scale of agricultural management.
- Appropriate - right-sized and suitable for a specific community, location, or operation.
- Equitable - systems and businesses that support underserved groups and empower communities.
Steward supports agriculture in many forms and is committed to ensuring local communities can meet their basic needs. As a policy, Steward prioritizes funding food production. Secondary priorities include medicine, fuel, and fiber. Recreational or ornamental crops are less viable for Steward loans, however, this isn’t to say that Steward won’t fund sustainable flower farms or native plant nurseries. Instead, this indicates that when funds or staff capacity are limited, resources will be allocated to higher priority crops and production systems.
