Digital agriculture is transforming production in Brazil, says Alexandre Barioni, commercial director of Climate FieldView Brazil

 

In an exclusive interview with AgroPages, Alexandre Barioni, Commercial Director of Climate FieldView Brazil, explains how digital agriculture is transforming production in the country. With so many technology and platform options available in the market, Barioni pointed out the differentials and why producers should choose Climate FieldView.

 

 

Not just agriculture, but the world is digitizing itself. I would like to offer a very practical and personal example: I have a five-year-old daughter and when she picks up her cell phone, she knows how to take a selfie; she knows how to do a lot of things. I fiddled with a computer for the first time when I was 18 years old. I am a farmer too, my whole family is composed of farmers, I do not know if my daughter will be one, but how many farmers' children do we have today that live the exact reality that I live inside my house?

 

What do I mean by that? I have no doubt that the new generation, in the field too, is digitizing itself to life as a whole. This new generation will not live without this digitization of agriculture on their properties. For me, it is a reality, what we can question here, is the speed at which this will occur, and what will be the dominant platform in the market, but the world is being digitized. I think that farmers' children will also fall into this concept.

 

 

Yes, we talk a lot about digital transformation. I would like to give a very simple example of digital transformation, because sometimes we get the feeling that this is very distant and very complicated. And here, I bring back the example of WhatsApp.

 

In today's farming world, how many farmers use WhatsApp? Probably the vast majority. It is to sell grain, buy inputs, to understand what is happening in the property, to talk to the employees. Is it digital transformation? Of course it is! This is digital transformation in a super simple, super practical way, which is already happening. As people realize the value in the market, changes like this will occur.

 

 

FieldView has a great differential, which is to connect several machines in the market. For example, generating a harvester productivity map is not something new, right? I have been trained for more than 20 years, I am an agronomist, I have worked with the launch of precision agriculture in Brazil, so we have excellent platforms in the Brazilian market. Today, we have plantation maps and seeds in the Brazilian market as well.

 

So, what's new? The FieldView Drive is what allows us to connect all the platforms that are available in the farmer's hand. The producer has to have the power of choice with regard to the kind of machine he wants, the color of the harvester, the tractor, a new or older tractor, bigger or smaller, it is his decision. FieldView connects all the platforms that are in the market today, giving the farmer the right to make the choice. People today put everything in one place.
 

 

 

Yes, there were more than 100 updates on the platform, which were happening throughout the year. There were 100 updates demanded and carried out here in Brazil, but all the updates that we do here in Brazil, have an impact on the American farmer, the European farmer, as well as other updates coming from the North American market also benefit the Brazilian farmer. When you improve a product, your engineer maybe working in the United States or here in São Paulo, but the benefit is reaped by every farmer in the world.

 

 

The cost is favorable, and the benefits at the end of the day will depend on each farmer. We have brought about examples of quality of planting, of regulation of the irrigation system, we can talk about the speed of the planter, of better agronomic practices. So, I think you will be able to have farmers who will see it a certain way, while others will see it in a different way. We are also learning, the cost cannot be limiting for us; when you look at FieldView, the goal is to develop the platform for as many farmers as possible, so that we can have an increasingly consistent product in the market, delivering value in an increasingly effective way.