Innovation · R&D
Exponential Lab.
Leading through excellence, PRETATERRA seeks to maximize its innovation process, turning every new challenge into continuous improvement. Our Research and Development is built into the day-to-day improvement of our projects. We are actively looking for new partners to help us develop the most disruptive and exponential fronts in the regenerative and agroforestry field.
Research fronts
Nine fronts, one open-air lab.
01Training
E-learning and knowledge transfer
A new agroforestry planet needs new professionals. The new designers of this harmony need a new way of learning, one that revisits the origins of digital technology as a tool to help learn the most ancestral natural concepts.
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Our ecosystem education division, PRETATERRA Academy, was created to offer a narrative and a learning experience never seen before, designed for new generations.
02PRETATERRA Farm
Our open-air R&D, expanding across the landscape
By bringing innovation and ancestry together, we create cutting-edge technology for agroforestry.
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First of all, we grow our own food and use our home as a successful showcase of agroforestry technologies developed in-house to reduce management and optimize the spatial logic of agroforests. This space lets us work on disruption more systemically. As a social technology, we expand our systems beyond our borders, training local farmers through workshops and regular meetings. To strengthen the ecosystem resilience of the landscape, we also build biodiversity corridors connecting the surrounding forest areas. We partner with local governments and actively seek investors and grants. Today the Timburi Project has restored and implemented agroforestry systems on more than 300 hectares.
03Agroforestry carbon
Carbon forecasting and quantification in agroforestry systems
Using multidisciplinary methods, we study variations in the growth curves of different plant species and how their performance changes with soil and climate conditions, management practices and climate change.
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Instead of using average parameters for specific biomes, we quantify the carbon in every individual plant of an agroforestry design, one module at a time, producing highly accurate forecasts. Precise measurements and a robust database help us infer the dynamics of humic carbon in the soil, and of carbon in leaf litter and roots. Finally, calibrations take into account management practices (such as pruning and biomass addition), leakage and potential extreme events. Combining agroforestry experience with cutting-edge GIS technology has helped us build the most innovative algorithms for forecasting carbon sequestration, both in agroforestry systems and in restoration areas.
04Smart cities
Urban agroforestry, robotics and precision regenerative agriculture
Looking toward a decarbonized economy, at a time when new ideas and solutions are urgently needed, we focus our efforts on food systems for smart cities.
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To that end, we translate the mimetic principles of agroforestry into precise solutions and plans for urban food production. Together with our partners, we create integrated models guided by social, human and ecosystem values, in a revolutionary vision of the more sustainable, resilient and efficient future we want to build.
05Drones & GIS
Aerospace technology, mapping and landscape planning
To scale regenerative agroforestry projects, we need a broad, large-scale reading of the landscape.
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By connecting existing analysis tools, we overlay LiDAR and NDVI data on recent drone or satellite imagery to build three-dimensional models, checked against soil analysis history and field calibrations from inventories and sampling. Functional drones already help with the mechanical management of agroforests, distributing inputs and providing performance data. Beyond holistic landscape planning and accurately matching each plot to its best use, we can predict biomass, photosynthesis, productive performance and carbon with great accuracy.
06Software & modelling
Big data, machine learning, financial modeling and decision algorithms.
Drawing on a wealth of available data and a robust metadata bank on plant performance in agroforestry systems, we build the most innovative models for productive and financial forecasts of regenerative agroforests.
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Machine learning predicts the behavioral interactions between individuals placed systematically in the agroforest and, therefore, the strategic management interventions. Our forecasts bring accuracy to choosing the species with the best performance and return in production and carbon. Through three-dimensional drawings and sketches, we aim to create a gamified visual experience that takes the user inside the agroforest, without physical or time barriers, in an environment where the dynamics of stratification and succession can be experienced in a unique, immersive way. We also build visual management tools flexible enough for shifts in decisions, resource allocation and production cost tracking. Our algorithms are constantly being calibrated: in a permanent beta, we focus on continuously improving the different APIs that generate our agroforestry designs and financial models.
07Urban exodus
Landscape planning and collective organization in redefining work
Envisioning a systemic reconnection between people and nature, and anticipating new generations returning to the countryside, we work on solutions rooted in the search for belonging and in activities tied to our intrinsic survival.
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Understanding that repopulating the countryside requires an active process of training, understanding and reorganizing the productive matrix, we see private-sector participation in land redistribution as a positive source of added value. PRETATERRA seeks, evaluates and designs collective productive landscapes, planning administrative and collective-management tools, the integrated use of legal forest reserves and high-value supply chains, through market analysis and the creation of cooperatives and consumer groups.
08Living soil
Microorganisms, natural inputs, soil-plant interaction and nutrient density
By reviving ancestral techniques and using innovative technologies, we study how to make nature work in our favor to produce food.
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One of PRETATERRA's main focuses is inspired by terra preta de índio (Amazonian dark earth), the anthropogenic soil of time-lost origin, born from ancestral regenerative farming practices. Today, we study the correlation between the nutrient density of food and the microbial life of the soil where it is grown. Our algorithms work with the distribution of service species in the design and with an understanding of nutrient cycling in the system. The interaction of species, environment and smart microorganisms in the agroforest gives us data to assess and quantify nutrition, which can be translated into alternative inputs (such as rock dust, biochar and different types of biomass) and, in turn, the gradual replacement or reduction of chemical inputs.
09Ecosystem services
Carbon, water and biodiversity – turning nature into a socio-environmental asset
We use the logic of nature and ecosystem dynamics to create tools and methods to generate, monitor, manage and monetize ecosystem services.
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Carbon, water and biodiversity are the focus of our efforts. Our tools are built by defining KPIs and using historical ecological and climate data to create predictive models. Once these are quantified, transparent incentive flows and smart public policy allocation are co-created, always keeping a transparent technical dialogue between stakeholders. We are currently working on tokenization and on monetizable NFTs linked to ecosystem services and socio-biodiversity practices that bring resilience and financial flow to communities that depend directly on the forest.