Forbes: 20% of Brazilian billionaires earned their fortunes in the same sector

According to Forbes, R$402.2 billion (US$77.3 billion) is the combined fortune of 54 of the 290 Brazilians on the list of the wealthiest people in the country.

However, it is not only the money and the ‘billionaire’ status that they have in common but how they all became rich by investing in the same sector. It is practically 20% of Brazilian billionaires.

Involving everything from the sowing process to the final production of food, the agribusiness production chain was the great “factory” of billionaires of the year 2022.

And this fact should not come as a surprise to anyone. With a world population of 7.7 billion people, expected to rise to 9.7 billion by 2050, sustainably producing enough food has been the primary concern of global institutions and leaders – and this has attracted a lot of money.

Consequently, the agribusiness industry has come to represent a considerable share of the national GDP, reaching almost 30% by 2021.

And the data increasingly evidences this trend. A report from the World Wealth Report by consultancy Capgemini pointed out the sectors responsible for creating the largest number of millionaires in the next decade.

To this end, specialists were consulted, and agribusiness was among the ten most cited areas, ahead of classic sectors such as mining and health.

But, after all, how did Brazilian agribusiness grow so much to the point of “creating” more than 50 billionaires in the country? How did Brazilian agribusiness become one of the largest in the world?

While many markets have faced difficulties since the pandemic’s beginning, Brazilian agribusiness, which supplies the internal and external markets, saw the demand for agricultural products heat up.

But the success of Brazilian agribusiness is not occasional. The country was already the world’s top 1 or 2 in production and exports of practically all agricultural commodities, such as corn, cotton, soybeans, wheat, sugar cane, coffee, and cocoa, even before the pandemic occurred.

Different from what many people think, the market’s growth is not related to deforestation or the expansion of agricultural frontiers.

While in the past, what determined a farmer’s success was the size of his land, today, technical knowledge is responsible for multiplying productivity in the Brazilian countryside.

THE DIGITALIZATION OF THE FIELD

Forty years ago in Brazil, a soybean plantation made on 1 hectare of land (10,000m2) yielded, on average, less than 2 tons of grains. Today, that same area already produces 4 tons.

Doubling the harvest and growing without expanding the area is not magic of the farmer but a reflection of the tool that made Brazil the world leader in the sector: technology.

With the enormous challenges the sector faces, such as producing food in large quantities and in a sustainable way to keep up with the growing population, those who manage to use technology to increase productivity in the field are becoming market leaders.

After all, the digital revolution that has been taking place in recent years has reached all sectors of society, and agribusiness would not be left out.

In practice, digitalization helps farmers to monitor crops through drones, plant, and harvest in less time and not lose entire harvests to bad weather.

AGRITECHS, THE NEXT AGRO-REVOLUTION

The goal is to reduce costs, increase productivity, and make agribusiness sustainable in the long term.

The so-called AgTechs/AgriTechs, or agribusiness startups, unite technology and the field, and aim to bring technology to one of the world’s most relevant and traditional industries.

Although very new, many of these startups are already becoming true giants.

Global investments in agtechs, estimated at US$6.4 billion in 2014, have increased to US$30.5 billion by 2020, an increase of 476%.

However, we are talking about a tiny slice of the market. Today, the number of agribusinesses already digitized is only 30% of all farms.

In other words, more than 3 million farms have not yet gone through the digital transformation and, consequently, are operating below their productive potential.

AN OPPORTUNITY TO WORK FOR BRAZIL’S MOST PROSPEROUS INDUSTRY

Living in the countryside is unnecessary, much less having a degree in agronomy or veterinary science.

If the image of the rural producer in the past was of someone uneducated, conservative, “country bumpkin”, and averse to novelties, today, it couldn’t be more different.

Working at home, on the computer, and living in big cities, the most sought-after professional in agribusiness is capable of taking technology to the field and making operations more and more productive.

Agro Digital Manager is the professional responsible for understanding the producer’s demand and proposing the most appropriate technological solution to solve this problem.

And for this, a degree in agronomy is not needed, much less to live in the field. It is like a digital project coordinator who organizes a team of specialists (such as engineers and developers) and ensures that the business works productively and sustainably.

The demand is such that, according to a study by the German Agency for International Cooperation, it is estimated that there will be 32,500 qualified professionals for 178,800 opportunities in two years.

That is about five open positions for each qualified professional in the market.

With information from Exame