How a Group of Brazilian entrepreneurs and researchers are transforming Bolivian agriculture?

The Bolivian agricultural sector is the great economic and social importance and had an average share of the Gross Domestic Product of 10.6% (2006-2021). Since 2017, it has been the sector with the highest growth (6.6%).

Likewise, the sector is a source of foreign exchange, as it had an average share of 5.8% of total exports (2006-2019) and is the sector that most employed people with 26.1% of the economically active population.

Most of the cultivated area in Bolivia is used for the production of oils and industrial crops, with 44% (1,645,547 hectares), including crops such as soy, sunflower, sugar cane, cotton, peanuts and sesame, and the second most important group is cereals with 37% (1,397,398 hectares), where there are crops such as corn, rice, wheat and quinoa. Soybean is the main crop, where we have 1.1 Mio of hectares planted in the summer harvest (Nov-Jan) and 320 thousand hectares in the winter (March-Aug), Soya represents 40% of all planted area in Bolivia.

The department of Santa Cruz has the highest proportion of cultivated area in the country (70.5%), followed by La Paz (7.5%) and Cochabamba (5.6%) (INE, 2020b, 2020h). 

In the Social Economic Development Plan (PDES), the Government determined to promote the expansion of the agricultural frontier to reach 4.7 million hectares in 2025 with cultivated land, figures that are totally feasible as I will show below.

Since 1990, the cultivated area has increased annually, from 1.2 million hectares in 1991 to 3.8 million hectares in the 2018-2019 harvest (INE).

Analyzing these data and adding up the areas of natural pastures (11 Mio of hectares, plus cultivated pastures 2.4 Mio of hectares, it is easy to understand the great agricultural potential to be explored in Bolivia for the next years.

In addition to pastures, which can be recovered and integrated with agriculture, there is a new agricultural frontier called Chiquetania region, a frontier region east of Santa Cruz, which is one of those new agricultural frontiers with the potential according to some to add 2 more million hectares, where the cost of land is around US$ 500/ha plus the opening cost of around US$ 1200/ha. These costs are extremely attractive for those who are an agribusiness entrepreneur.

Allied to this, there is great potential for growth in technology, since one of the biggest challenges for Bolivian agriculture is to increase its productivity. Yields of the main agricultural products in Bolivia were lower than the South American average.

The average 2200 kg/ha of Bolivian soybeans is 77% lower compared to Argentine soybeans, 72% lower than the productivity of Brazilian soybeans and 84% lower compared to Paraguayan soybeans.

Only 20% of the entire Bolivian territory was fertilized in the last seasons and even in its most developed region, the Santa Cruz region, only 66% used some type of fertilization. Segments such as seeds by regulatory restriction, seed treatment, inoculants, foliar nutrition, and biologicals are still in embryonic stages.

The most developed segment is the Crop Protection market, which is estimated to be worth US$ 0.34 Mio and with fewer phytosanitary problems than Brazil. The production cost is around US$ 360 dollars per hectare, very similar to Brazil and where fertilizers have costs around US$ 240/ha.

Bolivian agriculture, mainly export crops, is very concentrated and where the focus on operational efficiency is mantra for these farmers. The acceptance of generics by the farmer is preponderant and many of them import these products directly, which is imported by Arica in Chile, which makes products from China and India even more competitive. 

Several positive points stand out in Bolivian agriculture, the main one being the cost of land, which is still low when compared to other South American countries, the low volatility of the dollar, cheap financing and the easy rules for opening new areas will accelerate the growth.

The major problems in Bolivia today, as in all South American countries, including Brazil, is the political instability, where judicialization, land invasion, attempted state interference, non-compliance with contracts and the lack of guarantees prevent a greater investment from foreigners and technology companies. 

Smuggling is also a serious problem: Argentine farmers to evade taxes sell their products directly on the Bolivian market, generating low margins for seed companies, which generates a lack of investment in research and development and makes the technology and productivity challenge are the first bottlenecks that Bolivian farmers and the government need to resolve.

As one of the great challenges in Bolivian agriculture is to increase productivity, a group of Brazilians decided to create an initiative called Mastermind, a program conceived by a Brazilian agronomist Rafael Hungarian, owner of Agrohungaro and Digital farms.

Rafael realized that only with his knowledge and precision agriculture he would not solve the problem of Bolivian agriculture, and that to increase productivity would not only require an effort of his own, but a collective effort. With that in mind, he invited the largest distributor of crop inputs in Bolivia, Agropartners, to build this program together.

Agropartners is also led by another Brazilian, Siegfried Boos, who has been in Bolivia since 2004 and founded the company which today has more than 53 agronomists in the field and which in 2021 had a turnover of almost US$ 70 million. agropartners offers a complete solution to the farmer, in addition to having its own brand of products for crop protection, in 2022 it will launch its brand of Biologicos products, Biodefense.

Mastermind is a unique program in Bolivian agriculture where Agrohungaro and Agropartners offer the farmer a complete solution in fertilization, protection of their crops and a whole network of trials  generating research and development results for these farmers.

In addition to having a dedicated team of agronomists who are fully dedicated to the farmers' farms, they are mentored by 6 of the most important Brazilian researchers.

• Dr Robinson Osipe; Specialist in matology and control of difficult to control weeds – Universidade do Norte do Paraná - Bandeirantes

• Dr Marco Gandolfo and Dr Ulisses Gandolfo: Specialists in application technology - University of Northern Paraná - Bandeirantes

• Dr Marcelo Canteri: Specialist in plant disease protection – State University of Londrina

• Dr Silvestre Belletini – Specialist in Pest Management – University of Northern Paraná – Bandeirantes

• Dr Luis Guilherme Arruda – Specialist in biological products – Agribela

These specialists visit farms during the summer and winter seasons, diagnose problems, manage, and calibrate machinery, assess the management of weeds, pests and diseases, and propose protocols to investigate new technologies, new products and new services.

A technician fully dedicated to the project conducts these research and development trials and the results are shared among all participants.

All this program count with a modern fertilization management platform that today, in addition to being the most expensive segment for the farmer, has great possibilities for improvement, it also has an exclusive soil laboratory located in Brazil that meets all the demand in a fully customized service. for the participants.

The main objective of the project is not only to make specific recommendations for each client, where through whatsapp groups and joint field days, they learn in situ and exchange experiences, the Mastermind project aims to be a future research center and development for new technologies in Bolivia.

I have always believed in the strength of the collective and I am sure that the efforts of these Brazilians and Bolivians towards a more productive and sustainable agriculture will bear successful in a short period of time. I am sure that the results generated by this initiative will not only be fruitful for program participants, but also for all Bolivian farmers.