The Digital Revolution of Agriculture

By Carlos Becco

The Argentina of the future, which we hope, will be based, in line with the rest of the world, on a circular economy. This economy, the necessary daughter of the present, will have a strong conceptual basis in agriculture and agribusiness and precisely for this reason, a generalized focus on biology, AgTech, sustainability and bio-business.
Many skills related to knowledge, networks, value-chains, and clusters, as well as those related to interpersonal relationships and a different education with a clear and consensus vision, will be required in the face of this so challenging and yet so passionate scenario, that necessarily will have to continue over time. This is why “The digital revolution of agriculture” has become a complete, must-read and specially focused book that comes to us in a unique “momentum”, because it offers a different perspective of the present and anticipates a futuremuch closer to our needs.
From the moment my friend and colleague Carlos Becco sent me his book, I realized that, in a short time, there will be many more of us who will motivate this great federal, integrating, participative revolution that generates work and export value. The digital revolution of agriculture is not only an excellent and necessary book —that is also read with exciting dynamism—, it is the road map towards the big opportunity for a country that has everything to become a world agrifood and bioenergy power.
Eng. Ricardo Bindi – President of Agrositio

• Language: English
• Publisher: Carlos Becco
• Release date: May 27, 2022
• ISBN: 9791221341928

Book preview

Imagen de portada

The Digital Revolution

of Agriculture

The Digital Revolution

of Agriculture

Carlos Becco

© Carlos Becco, 2022

Cover art by Miguel Tiraboschi

Cover design by Daniela Coduto

Edition by Juan González del Solar @en_gerundio

Conversion to eBook: Sofía Olguín

Translation: Olga Domínguez

All rights reserved.

Índice

Introduction and acknowledgements

Foreword

1. The birth, zenith and decline of industrial agriculture

2. The digital revolution of agriculture

3. Lights and shadows of the digital revolution of agriculture.

4. From the plough to the carbon footprint

5. A passion for measuring

6. Eyes in the sky

7. The return of drones

8. IoT and data from the field

9. The digital Tower of Babel

10. Bye-bye, lot.

11. Water and the digital revolution of agriculture

12. Bytes and breeding

13. Pest control 2.0

14. A nonillion opportunity

15. A minute´s silence

16. The end of commodities?

17. Brokers of the future

18. Agri finance in the digital age

19. The consumer´s voice

20. Time for traceability

21. Hi-tech cattle breeders

22. The proteins of the future

23. Keys to a disruptive digital solution

24. Argentina and the digital revolution of agriculture

25. From producers to agricultural entrepreneurs

26. On talent and success and failure

27. Cecilia and the data

28. Who will be the digital leaders of agriculture?

About Carlos Becco

Introduction and acknowledgements

On June 30, 2020, I resigned from Indigo Ag, convinced that the time had come to turn over the page and start a new stage in my professional life; not without some trepidation. In this way, I dared to end almost forty years of working under an employment relationship. At the time, I was not clear on how and in what ways, but at the same time, I had no doubts about what my focus was going to be: the digital revolution of agriculture.

At the very moment I started my professional experience, Norman Borlaug’s legacy was my inspiration to find my vocation in agronomy and, already then, I discovered my passion for innovation, which accompanied me throughout my career. In it, I occupied leadership positions in some of the most important companies, which gave me the opportunity to be the protagonist of great transformations in the sector until, finally, I led the arrival of the first agricultural unicorn in Argentina.

My new status as an independent professional brought, as a consequence, the irresistible desire to share my passion for the profound transformation we are beginning to experience in our beloved Argentinian countryside. And so it was that the foreword writer of my book, the great Héctor A. Huergo —an agricultural expert and head of content for Grupo Clarín´s Rural Hub— came along and encouraged me to write about my experiences, which allowed me to rediscover a vocation that had been hidden for so many years of working under an employment relationship. From then on, I began to experience an unstoppable urge to investigate, explore and, above all, to write and share about this deep revolution that is sweeping through us.

As the successive articles went by, and motivated by the suggestions and contributions of the readers, without even imagining it, I discovered that the task was much bigger than I had imagined at the beginning and, little by little, I realized that the project was taking me to heights I had never dared to reach before: I had to write a book. Aware of the magnitude and the challenge of the path I was about to face, I accepted that it would be essential to find a partner to accompany me on this adventure. It was then, that I was fortunate enough to find my publisher, Juan González del Solar. There, I began a totally new experience in my life: more than nine months of intense work in common to build this story that, finally, today reaches your hands. It was a process of communion that I had never experienced before; without Juan’s help — I have no doubt — this book would simply never have existed.

I would like to take this opportunity to give special thanks to all those who read my drafts and, with their contributions and comments, helped to give this book its final shape. Among all of them, I would like to acknowledge the contribution of one of the greatest communicators of agriculture, Ricardo Bindi, for his generous review that enhances the back cover of this book. I would also like to thank the invaluable contributions of two referents of the Ag Tech movement, Tomás Peña and Pablo Hary. All the complex and challenging environmental issues key to this book were reviewed and corrected by the specialist, Tomás Portela. My daughter Candelaria deserves a special mention for the hours she spent revising this text and contributing with her fine reading skills to improve so many passages.

When it came time to design the cover, I knew I could rely on my lifelong friend Miki Tiraboschi, who helped me communicate many of the projects I had the privilege of being part of; and —of course— I don’t want to forget Daniela Coduto, who magically was able to give book form to all these good intentions. A special mention should also go to my brother Gonzalo, who took on the responsibility of the first printing of this book in the friends and family version.

Finally, this dream would not have been possible without the unconditional and absolute support of Victoria, my beloved partner. When she imagined that she was going to have her husband more available, she accepted, with infinite patience, a demanding project that absorbed me an enormous number of hours and that became the obligatory and main theme of so many walks. Thank you for accompanying me —once again— in this new and fascinating madness.

Foreword

We are privileged spectators of the birth of a new agriculture: digital agriculture. This sentence by Carlos Becco, taken from the original he sent me when he honored me with the proposal to write the foreword to this book, is absolutely unfair to himself. Carlos is not a privileged spectator looking out of the delivery room window, but a necessary architect. One of the fathers of the child. I experienced this first-hand when I attended a Syngenta meeting in Mar del Plata five or six years ago. From his position as the company’s marketing manager, he presented the first concrete case I knew of the offensive application of digital technology in Argentinian agriculture.

Until then, the first steps of the age of big data were oriented towards optimizing the use of resources. Precision Agriculture, which consisted of not putting mustard where there was no sausage, was the order of the day. Saving on inputs, necessary both economically and environmentally. Even more so in a country where technology is expensive due to economic policy artifices, with a cut dollar for what the producer sells and a more expensive dollar for what he buys. He needs more tons of product to pay for one unit of inputs than any other farmer on the planet.

So, the path of intensification is a very complex one. It is very risky to bet on a maximum yield, which means you have to work your heart out if, later on, the weather does not help. The companies were suffering from this restriction. How could they overcome it? What Carlos did was to go down a path that at least made it possible to remove the weather restriction.

To do this, he hired the services of a start-up that had the technology to evaluate and compare the evolution of the weather for each environment. And he set up a kind of technological insurance that removed weather risk from the equation. If the rain were elusive, the company would be supportive, with a reduction in the amount of the bill at the end of the cycle. I also had the privilege, during my 50 years of life dedicated to agricultural communication, of living through an impressive saga, which I have called The Second Revolution of the Pampas. The first had been the advance on the Pampas lands, starting with the National Organization, consecrated in the middle of the 19th century. These pampas became the granary of the world; meat and wool generated the basis of a historic business for the country.

This process was exhausted more for internal than for external reasons. Until the Green Revolution awoke, a process of technology capture that allowed production to expand, timidly at first (in the 1980s). When the 21st century dawned, growth became exponential on the basis of hard technologies: direct sowing, biotechnology in seeds and microorganisms, agrochemicals to control weeds, insects and diseases, fertilizers. We went from producing 40 million tons to the current 150 million tons in just 30 years.

Many things happened, in the country and in the world. But the seed was planted. In the midst of these advances, the arrival of the digital era has come along. It is a new revolution that does not invalidate the previous one, which is not finished, but rather enhances it. Carlos has experienced this in his career as a prominent executive in the companies where he has worked. And in this work he immerses us fully in this Symphony of the New World, which was crying out for someone to tell us about it, to explain it, to fill us with confidence and energy.

On top of that, Carlos is very good at writing. Come and see.

Héctor A. Huergo

1. The birth, zenith and decline of industrial agriculture

Only 10,000 years ago man learned to domesticate wild plants, and that was the discovery that led to the birth of human civilization. Thanks to agriculture, Homo sapiens ended the constant wandering in search of food and the concept of home was born; with the first crops came villages, and with villages came markets. From then on, the growth of civilization was almost exclusively dependent on the capacity of agriculture. This activity then had the difficult task of ensuring the subsistence of populations and preventing humans from having to migrate. For this reason, the first crops were grown at the doorstep of homes — a concept far removed from today’s — but when the villages began to grow, the available space was no longer sufficient and it was necessary to find new spaces and, also, new food suppliers. At first, it was enough to source from nearby villages, but as the population continued to grow, it became necessary to travel further afield.

Rome was, around the year 1 AD, the first city to reach one million inhabitants — it would take hundreds of years for that to happen again—. Feeding that multitude required a transnational organization, with productive poles in the Nile delta and North Africa and a complex logistical network based on modern ships and transport routes that had to be protected from pirates.

Until then, village markets were the meeting place where farmers could offer their full range of products, and we can assume that consumers could choose based on a thorough knowledge of where and when and how that food had been produced. Then, when it became necessary to transport huge volumes of grain — for example, from distant Egypt — this principle of traceability was lost in Rome and the offer was transformed from John’s wheat to — simply — wheat. The need was for consumers to have enough wheat to feed themselves, but it did not matter whether it came from Egypt, Carthage or the Middle East. And, of course, the consumers of the time were not in a position to make many demands in this respect.

This agricultural model was fundamentally extractive: based on converting natural resources into food. When these natural resources were exhausted, it was necessary to find new productive territories. One of the reasons behind the powerful military machine built by the Romans was precisely to feed an ever-growing Rome: to ensure food for such a large population, it was necessary to conquer the fertile plains between the Tigris and the Euphrates.

Since then, humanity’s growth has been determined by agriculture’s ability to produce food. And when agricultural models failed to cope with the pressures of nature, mankind paid the price in devastating famines. The first known famine occurred in Egypt in the mid-2600s BC, during the time of Pharaoh Necherjet Dyeser of the Third Dynasty, when the waters of the Nile failed to reach the level needed to irrigate the fields. The pharaoh summoned his advisor Imhotep — one of the most important scholars of antiquity, the first ‘known’ scientist and considered the first engineer and architect in history — and his recommendation was none other than to suggest that he plead with Jnum, the Lord of the Nile Springs, for an end to the famine — all this is recorded in the Famine Stela, a rock-cut text on the island of Sehel, discovered in 1889 by Charles Edwin Wilbour—. From this first record, the succession of agricultural crises throughout history has been virtually unbroken: from the decline of the Mayan civilization due to drought between the years 800 and 1000, to the Great Famine of Maoist China between 1958 and 1961, to countless cases in all latitudes, many of humanity’s worst disasters were the result of failed agricultural production patterns.

It was not until 1960, with the advent of the Green Revolution —a term used internationally to describe the major increase in agricultural productivity between 1960 and 1980 in the United States, later extended to many countries — that the war on hunger began to change course. This