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Orizon Agriculture - about the team

23 June 2023

Orizon

Regenerative Agriculture

Cattle grazing in a field
People walking through a field of cover crops

Agriculture is a very special sector. It is the basis of our society, providing us with the food we eat and with a large portion of the natural materials we use. At the heart of agriculture are farmers. Modern farmers are tasked with producing food sustainably on an unprecedented scale. Due to the complexity of modern farming operations, which exists where biology, chemistry, business, engineering and human resources overlap, farmers are reliant on advisors who keep them up to date on the best practices and strategies.

To register a carbon project and getting carbon credits issued requires a lot of work, and at Orizon we have assembled the dream team to do this. Michael Lilje heads our team as the founder and CEO of Orizon with a history in finances as a CA and a deep passion for regenerative agriculture stemming from his involvement in Farming God's Way projects. To keep us on track, our programme manager, Heinz Ortman, an ecologist by training, ensures that we follow best practices as set out by our registry, Verra, and that we comply with all requirements and deadlines. Our soil science expert, Douw Bodenstein, is responsible for our soil organic carbon modeling. Due to the technology-heavy nature of the work we do, our in-house developer, Dario Vieira, develops and maintains our website to ensure that our farmers have a good experience submitting or requesting data from our platform. Our sales team is headed by Willem van der Westhuizen, a biotechnologist by training, who is joined by Reinard van der Vyver and Bruno Hermann, both agronomists.

Field with flowers

Faith and a passion for agriculture and God's Creation unite our team at Orizon and this is evident in our work. We work to enable our farmers to be better stewards of the land entrusted to them. We work to help farmers learn from each other and re-ignite their passion for agriculture. We work to help keep families on their farms.

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