BASF launches program that aims to democratize the use of digital agriculture in Brazil

Aiming to overcome barriers to driving the widespread adoption of digital technology in agriculture, BASF developed Xarvio Agro Experts (the company spells the noun as "xarvio"), a program within the company's Agriculture Solutions Division. According to the company's statement, the model was created through a partnership with Xarvio Digital Farming Solutions, connecting specialized and independent agronomic consultancies to farmers. Through Xarvio Field Manager's innovative technologies, the program aims to offer digital agriculture solutions.

Xarvio Agro Experts allows, through a business partnership, precision agriculture consultancies to have access to several existing Xarvio solutions, optimizing and increasing productivity in the field, mainly for soybean, corn and cotton crops. This enables consultancies to expand their solution portfolios, "adding even more value to the work currently provided."

How works

To participate in Xarvio Agro Experts, the specialized agronomic consultancy must: preferably already operate in the market as a specialized agronomic consultancy; have professionals accredited by CREA – Regional Engineering and Agronomy Council – in the location where they operate; and undergo careful evaluation.

Another important step is training with a course from the Academy Xarvio Agro Experts specialized in digital agriculture, legislation that permeates the use of drones in the field and theoretical and practical foundations of Xarvio Field Manager's digital solutions. Once the course is completed, the consultancy will be available on the Xarvio platform, allowing farmers to find your services and you will also be authorized to bring Xarvio solutions to the farmers you currently serve.

Positive feedback

The Xarvio Field Manager platform brings map-based tools to the field every day, which enable more strategic agronomic decision-making throughout the harvest and enables positive returns, which can increase the profitability of the agricultural business. In the last harvest, for example, variable rate seeding maps showed greater efficiency for planting and increased productivity between 2% and 5% in soybean, corn and cotton crops. 

Digital weed mapping resulted in an average resource optimization of 61% due to the localized application of herbicides. For variable rate solutions, the desiccation maps (soybean and wheat) returned less variability in crop maturation and a consequent increase in harvest quality, with an average product optimization of around 30%, and the maps for application of growth regulator, in addition to standardizing cotton crops and improving fiber quality, farmers achieved an average optimization of 25% in product use.

“By making digital technology accessible to everyone, we reinforce our commitment at BASF to continually innovate agriculture based on services that enable farmers to produce with more sustainable agricultural practices and technologies, making important data-based decisions throughout the cycle from farming, from planting to harvesting”, highlights Almir Araújo, director of digital, new business and commercial excellence at BASF Agricultural Solutions for Latin America. 

According to a Ricardo Arruda, leader of agronomy and Xarvio field operations in Brazil, “Xarvio Agro Experts can provide additional revenue to the businesses of these professional consultancies, having Xarvio Field Manager solutions as an additional service offering in their service catalogs and generating differentiation of market compared to its competitors. The program is designed to mediate the relationship between specialized agronomic consultancies and farmers through the Xarvio Field Manager platform”.

Xarvio Agro Experts is launched in Brazil with the participation of specialized agronomic consultancies, strategically distributed in 8 states (RS, PR, SP, MG, GO, MS, MT and RO). Subsequently, the company plans to implement this market access model in Argentina.

Konstantin Kretschun (pictured below), global director of digital agriculture at BASF, explains: “Understanding and responding to the needs of the agricultural industry ensures we maintain our focus on delivering value. Our Xarvio Agro Experts initiative in Brazil highlights this approach, helping to ensure that more farmers and agronomic consultants can learn, access and profit from using digital agricultural technologies, specifically the proven and measurable benefits provided by Xarvio Field Manager. From a business perspective, Xarvio Agro Experts is an important milestone in our journey to positively transform agriculture through precision digital agricultural technologies.”