Agriculture with technology contributes to the growth of Brazilian GDP during the pandemic

Despite the coronavirus pandemic, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Brazilian agribusiness grew 24,3% in 2020, according to the Center for Advanced Studies in Applied Economics (Cepea) and the Brazilian Agriculture and Livestock Confederation (CNA ). In values, this represented almost R$3 trillion.

As a result, the sector went from representing 20,5%, in 2019, to 26,6% of the entire Brazilian GDP. In other words, livestock and agriculture represented a little more than 1/4 of all goods and services produced by the country last year.

To consolidate these numbers and show a little about the facet of enterprises that work with innovation in the sector, Embrapa recently presented the Agtech Radar 2020/2021, a mapping of startups in Brazilian agriculture. After validation work and taking into account inclusion and exclusion criteria, the survey identified that Brazil has 1.574 agtechs (startups that operate in the agribusiness sector).

The survey was also carried out by SP Ventures, Homo Ludens Research & Consulting and had a venture partnership with Speedio, a Big Data platform for generating B2B leads. The Speedio platform helped Radar Agtech 2020/2021 in enriching the database's data, collaborating with the classification and identification of agtechs.

“Agribusiness in Brazil is not a global power for nothing. Producers' investment in technology means that the country's products, whether in agriculture or livestock, become references. Speedio is in tune with the sector because it also bets on the innovation brought by Big Data analyzes to find the most assertive data possible”, says Maucir Nascimento, specialist in Growth, Marketing and Sales and co-founder of Speedio.

The importance of data validation

The Agtech Radar 2020/2021 systematized and classified agtechs, which were separated by filters such as: work before the gate (before starting the production process); inside the gate (all startups that assist in agricultural or livestock production) and after the gate (from leaving the field to the final consumer). 

Carlos Henrique Negrão Marolla, associate consultant at Homo Ludens Research & Consulting, explains that the research identified not only startups that started work recently, but also enterprises with up to 20 years of existence and that operate across the four corners of the country.

He states that agtechs were also separated by areas of activity such as “Innovative foods and new food trends”, “Drones, Machines and Equipment”, “Fertilizers, Inoculants and Plant Nutrition” and “Genomics and Animal Reproduction”. 

“In this complex package of information, which also took into account the contacts of each company, this is where Speedio came in to do the mining and bring more up-to-date data. With this much more targeted base, we were able to carry out the analyzes and present this entire database to the market, complete with the details of each of the 1.574 agtechs”, says Negrão. 

The consultant highlights that the work carried out by the Big Data analysis specialist was essential not only to validate the credentials provided by the startups themselves, but also to find the missing contacts of the agtechs that did not respond after an initial approach.

Big Data and Artificial Intelligence

Maucir Nascimento argues that platforms that carry out active prospecting use, in addition to Big Data (which can accumulate a database of public information found in places such as social networks, websites, Government bodies and 100 other sources), Artificial Intelligence ( IA).

He remembers that the tool is used to check the information captured, such as telephone numbers, emails and company addresses. AI also performs information validation.

“In the case of an important and robust survey like Radar Agtech, it was necessary not only to ensure that the contacts were correct, but also to validate whether the thousands of startups found actually operated in the agribusiness sector, for example. And tools that combine Big Data with AI can deliver this type of reliable results.”

The Growth, Marketing and Sales specialist argues that the analyzes only took into account startups that actually had an arm or vertical in agriculture or livestock. The initial survey identified more than 2 agtechs, a number that ended up reaching 1.574 due to project filtering.

“Performing prospecting with a digital tool avoids a lot of manual work that would probably take years to complete, of finding and validating each company. Therefore, automating this process values ​​time, which is a scarce commodity, and also guarantees the reliability of research such as Radar Agtech, which will also present our agro sector to governments and companies in other countries”, concludes Maucir.