AgroSoftware and Agribusiness in Brazil

The excellent Brazilian performance in agribusiness, its exports and Brazil's position of primacy in several segments is well known. The records broken year after year are the result of a series of factors, from the increase in productivity in the fields of our country to the international conjuncture and the increase in the prices of commodities but, in this equation, both Embrapa's excellence and the participation, increasingly present, of the so-called “AgroSoftwares” deserve to be highlighted.

This year's soybean super-harvest, as well as the recent study of the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Food (MAPA), with projections for the next 10 years, show that the planted areas are expected to grow 10 million hectares concentrated in soy, sugar cane and corn, and even crops that should not have their areas expanded, such as coffee and, for the domestic market, rice and beans are expected to grow significantly in productivity, with the support of technologies, both agricultural and ICT, to cope with this growth while also expanding their profitability.

AgroSoftware in Brazil has been growing systematically since the early 2000s, although it still represents only 2.0% of the amount of Software business in the country. There are about 200 companies offering Software solutions for Agribusiness, most of them very specialized in their offer, although there are more than 400 different types of software covering an immense range within the agribusiness, from forests, through the diverse demands on the farm to the super-specialized in the management of the business front line, where risk and results command the operations.

The new generation in charge of the agro units in Brazil is increasingly understanding the importance of specialized technologies, which, combined with the ERPs that most already use, brings the necessary improvement both in financial management and on the farm floor.

A quick analysis on the international market shows that at AgroSoftware we have specialist solutions that could very well be customized for the international market, many of them without competition. However, supporting the country's relevant competitiveness in this area still seems to motivate the majority of AgroSoftware producers, dedicating more and more their solutions to support the excellence of this segment, relevant to our balance of payments.

In a next edition we will focus on the Internet of Things (IoT), which is boosting the field, further stimulating the sector to use Information and Communication technologies. Agribusiness should be the focus of the software producer in Brazil.