What It Is

RAPA — the Resilient Ag Project Accelerator — is a joint initiative between the Regenerative Ag and Water Lab (RAW Lab) and the Stewardship Index for Specialty Crops (SISC) that turns sustainability and regenerative ag commitments into measurable outcomes and increased capacity for specialty crop supply chains. 

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Together, SISC and RAW Lab bring measurement frameworks, industry network, project design/development and management, grower technical science and support, field research, and grower engagement capacity. Together, they create a practical system for advancing regenerative and resilient practices and capacity — for continuous improvement across growers, supply chains, and food companies.

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RAPA is built around a simple idea: start small, learn fast, and scale what works. Rather than a series of disconnected pilots, RAPA is designed as an accelerator — a repeatable engine that takes a well-scoped project, proves it out on the ground, and turns what’s learned into playbooks, capacity, and momentum that helps create more resilient farms and supply chains for clients. Each project is a building block toward broader industry change, not an endpoint.

 

Who It's For

The Accelerator is intended to primarily serve organizations seeking to advance and accelerate regenerative, resilient, and sustainable ag approaches across their supply chains — including broader water outcomes — in California, primarily through action, on-farm projects, and supply chain integration. Those organizations include brands, food and beverage companies, buyers and retailers, foundations and industry groups, and investor groups.

 

General Benefits

• Growers — Technical and financial support, efficiency and resiliency gains, increased farm viability, and capacity building.

• Brands & Buyers — Credible, outcome-based sustainability (including water), resilient and regenerative ag outcomes, and resilience capacity, built from on-farm implementation and research — with a clear path from a single project to sector-wide progress and more resilient supply chains over time.

• Supply Chains — Scalable solutions and increased capacity and resilience tied to real environmental outcomes and results, designed from the outset to move beyond one-off pilots.

 

Why It Exists

Brands and growers face growing pressure to demonstrate real progress toward sustainability and supply resilience, as well as measured outcomes from sustainable and regenerative ag practice changes. RAPA bridges this gap by connecting supply chain goals to on-the-ground action and insight, credible data, and measured results. Working closely with food companies, distributors, and retailers to understand their interests and needs, RAPA helps match them to existing, investable projects, growers, and partners, and/or (co-)develops a project that best meets those requirements and preferences, including specific locations and types of on-farm practices best suited to select crops, farm contexts, and target metrics. We also help assess what the ag community and growers most need and how to scale potential efforts once they’ve proven out.

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Shared learning and collaboration are key to a project’s success to build capacity and result in meaningful outcomes and impacts on the ground. We approach each project as serving specific organizational interests as well as the needs of the greater ag/food system, not in isolation from the larger system. 

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We believe each project has the potential to increase knowledge, build capacity, and evolve the entire industry. Given rapidly increasing climate impacts and risks, growing adaptive capacity to navigate them requires collective, coordinated approaches — not isolated efforts that stall after a single season. Where feasible, we ask that learnings from data and insights generated from projects be shared to accelerate growers and the greater supply chain alike.

 

Built to Scale, Not Just Pilot

A single successful pilot proves an idea works on one farm, in one season, for one grower. RAPA is designed to carry that proof further — turning individual projects into supply chain resilience. 

In practice, that means:

• Start small: Every project starts small and well-defined — a specific outcome, a specific set of growers, a specific set of practices — so it can be piloted, measured, and learned from quickly.

• Learn deliberately: Every project is measured against SISC metrics and evaluated for what actually worked, what didn’t, and why — not just whether the project “went well.”

• Package what works: Insights are translated into playbooks, technical guides, and capacity-building resources that other growers, advisors, and supply chain actors can put to use — without having to relearn the same lessons from scratch.

• Scale deliberately: Proven approaches are extended to additional growers, regions, and supply chains, and fed back into future project design so each cycle of the Accelerator makes the next one faster, less costly, and more effective.

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This is what makes RAPA an accelerator rather than a pipeline of one-off pilots: each project is expected to contribute to a growing, shared base of proof, capacity, and practice that moves the broader industry — not just the participating organization — forward.

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The Core Loop

Identify  →  Design  →  Pilot  →  Measure  →  Learn & Build Capacity  →  Scale  →  Repeat

 

Each pass through the loop is intended to leave the Accelerator, its partners, and the broader industry with more proven practices, more usable data, and more capacity than the pass before — so that scaling isn’t a separate phase tacked on at the end, but something built into every stage of the work.

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Who Benefits

• Growers — Technical support, efficiency gains, and potential incentives — plus the benefit of joining an effort designed to grow well beyond a single project.

• Brands & Buyers — Credible, outcome-based sustainability and regenerative ag reporting from real, on-the-ground management improvements, with a clear line of sight to scaling successful approaches.

• Supply Chains — Scalable solutions tied to real environmental outcomes and results.

 

Focus Areas

Water efficiency · Water resilience · Soil health · Nutrient management · Volumetric water · Water quality · Climate resilience · Habitat & biodiversity

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Find out more about exactly how the Resilient Ag Project Accelerator works.

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The Binding Principle

Every layer feeds the loop. Field data informs metrics. Metrics results inform knowledge products. Knowledge products improve field implementation. Each project cycle makes the next one smarter, more efficient, and more impactful — so that what starts as a single pilot on a single farm becomes a proven, scalable model for driving change across the industry.