“Soil health isn’t an abstract sustainability goal,” says Hunter Swisher. “It’s a systems strategy for producing what the world needs with the resources we have.”
In other words, it’s working with what nature already provides to produce food, rather than rather than relying on an endless supply of synthetic inputs to get the job done.
Swisher’s company, Phospholutions, does this through its RhizoSorb product, which it calls “the next generation of fertilizers.” A dry phosphate fertilizer, it was developed to improve phosphate-use efficiency in plants, which is critical for crop yields. Unlike conventional fertilizers, RhizoSorb also minimizes the amount of waste (e.g., runoff) that could damage the environment.
Phospholutions’ mission is in line with a key theme at this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland: “building prosperity within planetary boundaries.”
Also on the agenda at Davos this week: AI, which is slated to show up in just about every session on the books, including those related to agtech.
Swisher, who will participate in a talk this week at Davos, took time out to chat with AgFunderNews about farming within planetary boundaries and the role of AI in global agriculture.
AgFunderNews (AFN): “Building prosperity within planetary boundaries” is a big part of the agenda at Davos this year. How does attention to soil health contribute to this?
Hunter Swisher (HS): Soil health plays a critical role in how we operate within planetary boundaries because it determines how effectively inputs are turned into food.
Agriculture has already made enormous progress producing more with less. We can build on that by better understanding how soils function, and specifically, how well they make nutrients and water available to the crop.
When soil function is strong, crops are more resilient and inputs are used more efficiently. When it isn’t, losses increase and pressure shows up elsewhere, from wasted fertilizer to downstream environmental impacts.
Phosphorus use efficiency illustrates this well. It’s essential for yield, but soil chemistry often limits how much the plant can access throughout the growing season. Improving that interaction allows farmers to get more value out of what they apply, reducing waste while protecting performance.
That’s why soil health isn’t an abstract sustainability goal. It’s a systems strategy for producing what the world needs with the resources we have—and it’s where I and my team at Phospholutions are focused: strengthening nutrient dynamics in soil so productivity, economics, and environmental limits move in the same direction.
AFN: What technologies in this area are you most excited about in this area?
HS: Those that create clear wins for both farmers and for natural resource systems.
There’s a sweet spot where economics, efficiency, and environmental impact align, and that’s where real adoption and scale happen.
The breakthroughs that matter right now address the pain points farmers face and improve how their operations perform without major changes to their operations: increasing nutrient availability, strengthening root–soil interactions, reducing loss, for example. That delivers value on both sides of the equation: better margins and less environmental pressure.
When efficiency improvements also improve profitability, sustainability stops being a tradeoff and becomes part of operating infrastructure.
That’s the category we’re focused on at Phospholutions: bringing innovation to under-addressed parts of the system where small functional gains create outsized impact.
AFN: What are you most excited about—or concerned about—when it comes to AI in agriculture?
HS: I am excited about AI’s ability to shift agriculture from assumption-driven decisions to outcome-driven ones.
For a long time, many decisions in agriculture have been shaped by tradition, averages, or risk avoidance. AI creates the opportunity to make decisions based on verified performance across time and place.
My concern is that AI is treated as a shortcut instead of a discipline. If it adds complexity, obscures accountability, or pulls decision-making away from field reality, it will fail regardless of how advanced the model is.
In agriculture, AI earns its place only when it is explainable, reliable, and directly tied to outcomes farmers care about. The most impactful AI will not feel revolutionary. It will feel dependable.
AFN: “A spirit of dialogue” is a major theme at Davos this year. What might that look like in the agtech world?
HS: In agtech, a real spirit of dialogue means collaborating so that we can move past siloed rhetoric and align around achieving outcomes.
It looks like farmers, input providers, technology companies, food companies, and policymakers asking a simple question, ‘What actually works, and how do we scale it responsibly?’
We’ve seen this in action at Phospholutions, where our business model relies on partnerships across the entire value-chain. Phosphate manufacturers are looking for ways to improve efficiency and stretch the mined resources the food system depends on further in the field. Ag retailers are looking for ways to add more value through product differentiation that drives farmer profitability. Farmers are looking for ways to improve outcomes through higher efficiency of inputs like fertilizer. Our partners throughout the value chain are thoughtfully engaging to embed technologies like RhizoSorb into the dialogue of what’s next for agriculture.
Dialogue also means listening differently. Farmers do not need to be convinced that change is coming. They are already navigating it every season. What they need are solutions that respect their risk, protect yield, and fit into real-world operations.
When conversations move away from ideology and toward measurable performance, including efficiency, resilience, and stability, progress accelerates. That is how agtech moves from experimentation to impact.
AFN: What’s one big idea you want people to understand about agriculture today?
HS: The future of agriculture isn’t about adding more—it’s about losing less.
Protecting yield, building on the progress farmers have already made, and reducing waste is how efficiency, profitability, and sustainability move forward together.
That’s been a driving force behind our work at Phospholutions, as we enhance global phosphorus use by helping more of what’s applied become productive. And it’s a lens that applies well beyond our company, as the industry looks for practical ways to produce what the world needs within real constraints.
