(Photo: García Frugoni and Becco, at the head of the table, during the presentation of the IRP Program)
Buenos Aires, December 13th. An innovative and creative commercial agreement was developed by Indigo Argentina for bringing its microbiological technology to the farmers.
Last year, in its launching, around 10,000 hectares of soybean and corn were planted with its technology (Indigo Soja and Indigo Maíz), by 29 farmers. This year, the area grew up to 80,000 hectares, between soybean, corn, and cotton, planted by 130 farmers. “We were able to conserve 28 of the 29 original customers and to adding 102 more”, the leader of the local branch Carlos Becco, said to www.eFarmNewsAr.com, with evident satisfaction.
In the case of the soybean (90% of the initial area), the Indigo technology showed a plus of yields from 11% to 0%, across the country, with a national average of 4%. “In areas severely affected by drought, where from an initially expected yield of 4,000 kilograms per hectares, farmers collected 2,200 kilograms, our technology showed the maximum gaps respect to the conventional seed treatment. Instead, in areas where crop potential yields were expressed without limitations, the gap was minimum”, Becco detailed.
In the interim, Indigo Argentina launched its technology for wheat, covering 7,000 hectares in its first campaign.
But, how they were able to multiply eight times the area planted with summer crops? The head of Marketing, Ms. Romina Güeli, explained the key. She said the company developed a 50/50 commercial proposal to farmers, sharing the plus of yield obtained thanks to its disruptive technology.
“We don’t know about any antecedent of this kind of commercial proposal, except Indigo in Australia”, Güeli explained.
This season, farmers using Indigo’s technology must run part of the plot without it. At the harvest, the yield gap between the non-treated plot versus the treated will be shared 50/50 between the farmer and Indigo. They call this shared gap as “uplift”.
But there are some few variants in this agreement:
a.- The farmer can purchase the treated seed and not share the eventual yield surplus.
b.- The company provides the treated seed to the farmer taking a percentage of the crop production.
c.- Also, the company can provide the treated seed, or take the seed from the farmer and treated it.
Research Partners
In a press conference, Becco announced the launching of Indigo Research Partners, an I+D network to generate agricultural knowledge on a large scale. The project joins large farming companies like MSU, Adecoagro, Managro, Cazenave and other five, and ag-techs like Kilimo, Sentek, Arable, and Davis Instruments, between others.
Fernando García Frugoni, head of this project named Indigo Research Partners, explained to journalists present at the meeting, that they hope to obtain reliable data to improve the farm performance, but results could be available two or three years from now.
