This Kashmiri Is Digging Deep to Rewire Global Agriculture

Dr Tavseef Shah is not your typical startup founder.

- Aashiq Hussain Andrabi

Trained as an environmental engineer in Germany, he turned away from a career in steel to focus on soil. Specifically, how the Earth's most overlooked ecosystem—our agricultural land—can be healed using Al, agroecology, and the wisdom of farmers.

Shah, who grew up in Kashmir and now serves as COO of CinSOIL, works at the nexus of science, policy, and technology. His startup builds AI tools to monitor soil carbon stocks—an innovation that could fast-track the adoption of regenerative agriculture globally.

With over a decade in research and policy, including stints with the UN FAO and WWF, Shah has become a key voice on the future of food, farming, and climate action.

We caught up with him to talk about systems thinking, the promise of carbon farming, and why he believes farmers—not corporations—are best placed to lead climate action.

You trained as an engineer. What pulled you into agroecology?

I always wanted to work on tangible problems—that led me to engineering. But during my master's in Germany, I visited Kashmir and witnessed the 2014 floods. That experience was transformative. I began to think more systemically—how agriculture, land use, and climate are deeply connected. That eventually led me into agroecology.

Was Kashmir's agricultural culture an influence growing up?