S2:E10 – Finance Serving Farmers: How Food System 6 is Rewiring Capital for Regeneration with Lauren Manning
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Show Notes
Can we truly expect farmers to risk everything in order to regenerate the land?
Lauren Manning, Executive Director of Food System 6, joins us to explore what it takes to build a financial system that serves farmers, rather than the other way around.
Drawing on her background as a rancher, lawyer, and investor, Lauren shares how her own experience being denied a farm loan shaped her mission to rewire agricultural finance for equity, resilience, and regeneration.
At Food System 6 (FS6), Lauren and her team are tackling some of the toughest structural barriers in U.S. agriculture, from the limitations of FSA loan guarantees to the farm foreclosure crisis. Their work spans from EQIP Bridge Loans, helping producers fund conservation practices without maxing credit cards, to loan guarantees for regenerative agriculture, designed to de-risk unconventional borrowers and unlock patient, values-aligned capital.
We talk about:
- The meaning behind “Food System Six” and what comes after industrial agriculture
- Why non-bank lenders are key to financing the next generation of producers
- How the EQIP Bridge Loan program helps farmers access public funding sources without drowning in debt
- The emerging farm foreclosure crisis, and what can be done about it
- Why “financial empowerment” and “dignity in finance” are essential to system change
🎧 Listen now for a candid, data-rich look at the intersection of policy, capital, and regeneration, with one of the leading thinkers reshaping how money moves through the food system.