TerViva develops new crops on underproductive agriculture land. It primarily focuses on the production and commercialization of varieties of Pongamia. The company’s trees yield Pongamia seed oil that is suited for conversion to biofuel or chemicals; high-protein de-oiled Pongamia seed cake suitable for animal feed; and Pongamia pods composed of biomass suitable for bio-power production. In addition, it develops molecular markers for Pongamia breeding. The company was founded in 2010 and is based in Oakland, California.

They built TerViva™ to solve the imbalanced equation of a shrinking arable land base and a rising demand for food, fuel and fertilizer. Their solution is to help growers convert distressed agricultural land into productive acreage by growing a tree-based oilseed crop called Pongamia.

Their technology is based on proprietary advancements in agronomy and the genetics of pongamia, a leguminous tree species that produces 8x higher oil yield per acre than soybeans on underused agricultural lands stressed from disease and changing environmental conditions.

TerViva™ is currently working with leading agriculture and land management companies in Florida and Hawaii to establish pilot projects and commercial size acreage – two geographies where the need for a new crop and the proper climate for pongamia intersect.

Native to India and Australia, pongamia is a long-living tree that produces an annual harvest of seeds that are similar to soybeans. On a per-acre basis, pongamia produces eight times the amount of oil than a soybean with a fraction of the inputs (water, fertilizer, pesticides, etc.) and is thus cheaper to maintain while being much more sustainable and environmentally friendly.

They use pongamia to “grow oil”, combining agriculture with chemistry to produce clean fuels and green chemicals -- while at the same time restoring underproductive land and creating jobs in rural communities. Pongamia oil contains long-chain fatty acids that are well-suited for conversion into biodiesel, renewable diesel, high-performance surfactants, and lubricants. Once removed of oil, the residual pongamia seed cake is high in both nitrogen and protein, and has proven value as a fertilizer and animal feed supplement.

TerViva™ has compiled an exclusive library of high-yielding, patentable pongamia genetics from around the world and has developed propagation techniques for scalable, consistent results.