The Edge announced as co-founder of soil regeneration company

The Edge has been named as the co-founder of Oath, a new soil regeneration company.

The announcement was made at this week's Impact Ireland Convention in Dublin. The annual event focuses on impact investment, which aims to align financial success of investments with positive impacts on society as a whole.

The U2 guitarist, born David Howell Evans, said a friend approached him to invest in the project. When it was explained to him, Evans said his reaction was "wow!"

"I'm excited by what this could be," Evans said.

"As a songwriter, you're trained to recognise a great melody, a great idea when you hear it."

Evans said since he is a musician and "not a scientist," he is "fighting kind of a serious bout of imposter syndrome."

"I don't actually have any credentials here, but I'm so excited by what this could be," Evans said.

Evans said his "day job" as a member of U2 is "still my priority."

Oath is aimed at using artificial intelligence to address the issue of soil degradation.

According to the International Food Policy Research Institute, the soil quality of 33% of pastureland, 25% of arable land and 23% of forests has deteriorated significantly across the globe over the last 30 years.

Soil degradation decreases crops and livestock yields (and thus depletes food resources), worsens natural disasters such as floods, deteriorates water quality, causes loss of biological diversity, increases animal extinction rates and causes massive economic losses (the estimated costs for land degradation are around €9.5 billion each year).

Evans said Ireland is "doing pretty well compared to a lot of the European countries" in terms of soil quality.

"There are parts of the world where it's a serious problem," Evans said.

"Where Ireland could engage is more on a partnership basis. We have regulatory approval for Ireland, we could base ourselves here and we could scale up out of Ireland for the rest of Europe which would be a wonderful thing."

Oath Chair Anne Finucane told the convention her company has "the ambition to be a solution for farms, grasslands and any kind of soil in the world."

Dr Jack Gilbert, a member of Oath's Scientific Advisory board, said Oath is developing "an artificial intelligence model that identifies all of the nuts and bolts that go on microbiologically inside the soil... and how that interacts with the roots of the plant."

"We use that model to select exactly which microorganisms, bacteria and fungi are required in order to improve the health and resiliency of that soil," Gilbert said.

Oath has conducted field trials with positive results in Africa, and they plan to expand elsewhere.

"We have 200 tests to indicate that this has been effective and Rwanda is so impressed that the government there is partnering with us," said Finucane, adding, "They are scaling it throughout the country."

According to Oath's website, their 10 year goals include increasing food nutrients by 30%, eliminating 20 billion pounds of environmentally harmful nitrogen fertiliser emissions, saving 100 billion gallons of water and decreasing at least 1 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide.