Agri Business Review: Specials Magazine

“You will struggle to succeed in the U.S. market as it is vastly different from Brazil,” were one of many cautionary tales that Solinftec’s core team received a few years ago—when the digital agriculture solution provider set its sights on the North American agriculture sector. At the time, Solinftec’s reputation in Latin America was set in stone. Solinftec’sIoT-based solutions—that integrate and digitize all aspects of farming operations—were already prevalent in more than 16 million acres, and its equipment was monitored in real-time by over 100,000 daily users, including farmers and ag retailers. Through its soil sensors, on-board computers, telemetry networks, weather stations, proprietary algorithms, and real-time actionable insights, Solinftec had elevated Brazil’s agriculture industry to new heights, positively impacting the agronomic and operational efficiencies of farmers across the country. While renowned agriculture/biochemical giants such as Raízen, Tereos, Cofco, and British Petroleum utilized Solinftec’s solutions to augment the growth of their sugarcane crops, the likes of Amaggi and BomFuturo e Terra Santa did the same to improve the productivity of their row crops. Midway through the last decade, Solinftec was so ubiquitous in Brazil that its portfolio included eight of the ten largest companies in the sugar and ethanol sector and three of the five largest producers of grains and fibers. Fast forward to 2020, and 72 percent of all sugarcane production in Brazil is directly influenced by Solinftec’s digital agriculture solutions, and five of the six largest producers of row crops (soybean, cotton, corn) are reliant on Solinftec’s technologies. So, the question looms: did Solinftec successfully penetrate the North American market? Coming of Age: Succeeding in Newer Markets Turns out, it did, and Solinftec is just scratching the surface of all that it can accomplish within the vast U.S. agriculture sector. Over the next few years, Solinftec will invest more than $50Mn to further solidify operations at its U.S. headquarters near Purdue University—to bring high-tech solutions to American farmers. The decision to set shop in the state of Indiana was purely strategic. Indiana, one of the country’s biggest producer of corn, soybeans, and processing tomatoes, is also the leading hub for agbiosciences—a sector that contributes $16Bn to the state’s annual gross domestic product. By March 2019, Solinftec was already firing on all cylinders, entering a commercial and technology partnership with AGCO, a leading American agricultural equipment manufacturer. Through the engagement, Solinftec will roll out new solutions for the 2020 crop cycle for soybean and corn growers across the country. In less than 24 months, Solinftec has established operations in Florida, California, and Indiana, and plans to create more than 300 jobs at its West Lafayette office by 2022. “Through our success in North America, we have proven that our mindset toward digital agriculture is truly effective. We approach a farmer, ask them their needs, implement our technology, and harness the knowledge we have acquired over 12 years. This strategy always works, regardless of the country or market,” says Daniel Padrão, the COO of Solinftec, before crediting U.S. Sugar, Growmark, MKC, Tom Farms, and other US-based clients for sharing inside knowledge of the local agriculture landscape. Not Focused on One Process The digital farming strategy—that Padrão points to—is worth detailing. At the core of Solinftec’s solutions is the sole objective to allow farmers to do more with less, reducing the number of machines, fuels, chemicals, and fertilizers—all while guiding them to a productive and efficient outcome. “Farmers and ag retailers make thousands of decisions on a daily basis. By connecting people, machines, weather data, sensors, and other parts of farming operations, we give farmers a verifiable record of their harvest and traceability—from the farm to the truck to the mill, without any human input,” adds Padrão. Furthermore, Solinftec does not focus on a few aspects of farming, as is the norm among agtech companies. As noted by Padrão, Solinftec examines the entire process and discovers bottlenecks before working toward improving the efficiency of the operation. For example, Solinftec’s solutions leverage A.I. to alert farmers on “the best window of opportunity” on a particular day to execute the task of spraying.