AMecological: Active player in plant nutrition markets of Chile

Date:07-11-2016

Amecological vocation for “alive soil”

AMecological is a leader in the development of bio sustainable agriculture in Chile. It is oriented not only to increase its customer yields, but also people’s quality of life, promoting practices that ensure environmental care.

Since its establishment (a decade ago) the company had the wisdom to identify a problem that few people had seen. At that time if there was any concern for the soil, it was focused on chemical nutrients. Today, when they look back and from their position of leadership, Hernan Arias and Cecilia Jimenez, both Company Managers, feel that they played a role of " precursor" in concern for the parameters of physical soil fertility and the concept of " alive soil”.

From left to right : Hernan Arias and Cecilia Jimenez

Currently many Chilean companies follow Amecological’s philosophy with the belief that the production system is based on alive soil. Suitable soil allows plant growth, starting with the roots. If the roots do not develop, the process is finished. “This is like building a house, in terms of agriculture the soil is the foundation.  Organic, biological, it is like putting on the roof”.  If I have air, water and temperature balance, I already have suitable conditions for the plant to express their genetic potential: You start by ensuring the physical parameters and then progress to chemical and biological parameters, says Hernán Arias, AMEcological CEO.

AMecological does not have a fundamentalist vision of eliminating chemicals, but they say it is possible to rationalize their use and maximize their profit. " We often find orchards or crops with shallow root systems exploring the first 20 cm of soil , because due to the agricultural use the soil is compacted, or has created conditions that do not allow roots to deepen," continues Arias.

Amazing water and nutritional effects

AMecological has worked precisely the mechanisms to deal with difficult conditions for the soil. The best example is the experience of an avocado orchard of 100 ha in the V Region of Chile, where they had to cut 28 ha due to drought. They had an irrigation system every three days, but after application of Pow Humus they noticed that after the third day the soil was wet in the root zone and therefore more water was not needed. Finally, they watered on the fifth day. "If I had applied Pow Humus to the entire field I would have not cut those hectares, because I would have minimized irrigation frequency," said the farmer to the Amecological technical team.

Check the structure of Soil in orchard

That orchard had compacted soil, water remained in the top few centimeters of soil and surface runoff. The product decreased the problem, the water managed to penetrate and drainage capacity was obtained.All this helped to create the necessary conditions for the crop to develop. Afterwards, DISPER Alghum GS and DISPER Chlorophyl GS was subsequently applied to increase the development and reach the full potential performance of the plant.

Credibility: the first real sale is the second purchase

Far beyond selling a product, AMecological makes an intervention program to evaluate the needs of its customers and keeps track of what has been done to prepare a report on the state of the crop compared to baseline. They even venture to say that "the first sale is the second purchase of the farmer. Once the results were already seen and benefits were shown". Producers do not see AMecological as a supplier, but as a technical advisor. They rely on this company for solutions and that's part of the success of their business delegates.

 AMecological's team for agribusiness 

Underpinning this support requires training above anything else, one of the distinguishing characteristics of AMecological , as underlined by Cecilia Jimenez : "Our innovation has a lot to do with human resources, our Agronomists are highly specialized. The technical preparation of the team is vital, always with a main focus on helping clients achieve their maximum yields and thus improve their business profitability. " In fact the latest staff employed are people with master's degree in this specialty. The continuous improvement includes not only technical issues but also what is known as ‘soft skill’, since the quality of service is one of our competitive strategies. We speak of "being connected” because rather than winning a sale we prefer to earn credibility.

Consistent with the strong technical emphasis, a constant concern is to maintain close contact with advisors and specialists, which is reflected in the participation of AMecological in organizations like Chilean Network of Bioinsumos, the Chilean Society of Soil Science and other organizations, as well as the permanent presence at conferences and national and international symposiums.

Like the development of an “alive soil”, which requires persistence and long-term work, the company attributes its growth among farmers to results and a process of constant support over the time. To do this, they try to have the best tools with global suppliers recognized as the best in their area: Humintech (Germany), Eden Modern Agriculture (Spain), Codiagro (Spain) and Mapleton (Australia); and local distributors committed to their customers as Copeval and others who have adopted the "AMecological project" to recover the biological fertility of agricultural soils.