How the Accelerator Works

How the Resilient Ag Project Accelerator Works

How It Works — The 6-Stage Framework

1. Identify

Define the regenerative outcomes and/or (water) resiliency challenge and align grower, buyer, and partner interests.

2. Match/Design

Find an existing project or (co-)design a new one - design interventions/practices, select metrics, establish baselines, and select measurement methods. Scope the project to fit both investor and grower needs and context.

Options for grower a compensation element can be scoped within the project design. Compensation could take the form of pay for practice, pay for outcomes, flat participation stipend, or some other financial mechanism (e.g., loan interest rate reduction, guaranteed and/or extended contracts, etc.)

3. Pilot

Deploy in the field through the grower network with hands-on technical support, kept intentionally small enough to move quickly and learn.

4. Measure and Evaluate

Measure, evaluate, and analyze outcomes — environmental, agronomic, and economic.

5. Learn and Build Capacity

Translate insights about what works into capacity-building resources (e.g., case studies, white papers, field days) for a specific or general group of growers, ag advisors, and aligned supply chain actors — packaged as playbooks and programs built for broader adoption.

6. Improve and Scale

Feed learnings back into the next cycle, extend proven approaches to a broader set of growers, regions, and supply chains, and fold what worked into the Accelerator’s standing playbooks — turning a single pilot into an industry-wide practice.

Accelerator Project Guidance

Projects are intended to advance regenerative, resilient, and/or sustainable ag approaches and improved outcomes in soil health, biodiversity, and ag viability. They typically do not focus solely on ‘ag tech’ or chemical solutions separate from improving biology/soil health.
Partner with at least 1–2 Accelerator members to be part of the Accelerator. You do not have to be a member of CWAC or SISC to participate.
Data and/or insights are shared with your organization’s specific or general set of growers, advisors, and other interested supply chain actors to raise awareness and build broader capacity.
Project fees vary by project, depending on requirements, and include project development/management and Accelerator program management.
Projects can be primarily focused on research, capacity building, implementation, or a combination, and utilize SISC and other metrics as appropriate.
Involvement in ongoing supply chain engagement activities is highly recommended.
Some projects may leverage public sector funding or benefit from private sector match funding.
Projects are designed, where possible, to be extensible — built so that a successful approach can be expanded to more growers or replicated in new regions without starting from zero.

RAPA Accelerator Architecture — Five Core Layers

1. Governance — Oversight, strategy, and funding

SISC Council & RAW Lab Advisory Council joint leadership
Funding consortium (brands, buyers, public agencies, foundations)

2. Project Accelerator Engine — Where challenges become projects and projects become programs

Identify → Design → Pilot → Evaluate → Learn & Build Capacity → Scale → Improve → Repeat

Each stage produces tangible outputs — project charters, measurement plans, field implementation plans, performance reports, and grower/buyer playbooks — built to be reused and extended, not filed away.

3. Field Implementation Network — Where projects happen on the ground

RAW Lab member/partner networks — existing projects and relationships with members (extensive)
Living Labs — demonstration farms, watershed pilots, regional innovation hubs
Technical Assistance Network — agronomists, crop advisors, water and soil specialists
Grower Innovation Community — peer learning, feedback, and practice refinement, which helps successful practices spread grower to grower

4. Data & Analytics — The measurement foundation

SISC Metrics — standardized metrics to measure outcomes across water, soil, nutrients, energy, climate, and biodiversity
Water Stewardship Metrics — VWBA 2.0, BioBA, and WQBA methods and metrics to help organizations address water risk and resilience alongside agricultural outcomes
Landscape-scale metric aggregation and reports — results aggregated by crop type and region, and reported back to growers so they can see how they compare to anonymized peers
Additional data collection and measurement — implemented as needed depending on project needs and defined outcomes

5. Knowledge Translation — Turning data into action and action into scale

Insight-to-Action Team — synthesizes findings into recommendations
Grower Resource Team — practice playbooks, technical guides, economic analyses built for reuse across growers and regions
Supply Chain Team — guides buyers and brands on project outcomes and next steps for scaling

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.

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