Transition and a new agribusiness for the next 40 years
Publicado em 16/07/2026
Divulgação
Over the past 40 years, we've built a truly remarkable and undeniable tropical agro-environmental success story.
Published on June 24, 2026
Agriconscient Blog
www.tejon.com.br
*José Luiz Tejon
Translated/Copydesk by Teacher Francisco Barbosa Bardhal
Over the past 40 years, we've built a truly remarkable and undeniable tropical agro-environmental success story. It was once considered improbable. We expanded into Brazil's interior, across all biomes, where we learned how to produce food, fibers, fruits, energy, forests, and fertile soils.
Entrepreneurs created technology companies. Brazilian academic institutions turned into world-class universities as the excellent ESALQ (Luiz de Queiroz College of Agriculture), which is celebrating its 125th anniversary and is ranked among the world's finest agricultural schools. Its head, Dr. Thaís Vieira, will receive France's prestigious Order of Agricultural Merit on July 7 in Piracicaba, São Paulo.
Brazilian cooperatives assumed a leading role, accounting for approximately 55% of everything the country produces, while the food and beverage industry consumes nearly 65% of national agricultural production.
We have become competitive in several agricultural sectors alongside the world's largest agricultural powers and blocs, including the United States and the European Union.
Therefore, congratulations to the pioneering women and men, farmers and entrepreneurs who ventured into lands with little natural fertility, along regions lacking infrastructure, and helped bring us to where we are today.
And from now on? What comes next? We can no longer continue relying solely on the warrior spirit and heroic Brazilians determination, those people whose ancestors came from every corner of the world and who, together, built this resilient and unique Tropical Civilization.
Over the next four years, we must accomplish what we failed to achieve during the previous forty. Only then will we be able to double the size of our agribusiness sector.
We must finally implement a National Fertilizer Plan. It's unacceptable Brazil remains dependent on uncontrollable logistical disruptions and geopolitical maneuvers to import nearly 80% of this vital input.
We can no longer rely on an expensive fossil-fuel-based logistics system at a time when environmental costs are increasingly being incorporated into global value chains, not only in farming itself, but throughout the entire system that operates before and beyond the farm gates.
We can no longer tolerate low irrigation levels, nor the absence of comprehensive Rural Insurance coverage. We can no longer accept legal uncertainties of every kind, or endless indecision regarding environmental matters that are too often treated as ideological disputes and clashes of ego rather than issues guided by science.
Nor can we continue accepting high interest rates that make agricultural investment nearly impossible. And we can no longer afford to operate without a strategic communications and branding plan for Brazil in global markets.
This week, I participated in two exemplary events.
The first brought together the SRB (Brazilian Rural Society) and ANEFAC (National Association of Finance, Administration and Accounting Executives) in São Paulo under the theme: "Legal Agribusiness: From Genetics to the Final Consumer."
The second was an outstanding gathering organized by FIA Agro (University of São Paulo Foundation Institute of Administration), bringing together educators, executives, and scholars, highlighted by a keynote lecture from Professor Dr. Décio Zylbersztajn.
Professor Zylbersztajn, founder of PENSA (Program for Agribusiness Studies) in the early 1990s, was one of the pioneers who introduced the Agribusiness Systems concept into Brazilian academia and his message was clear:
"We are living through a period of transition and structural transformation".
In both events, one conclusion became unmistakable:The world has changed.
We're are through transition, and the future won't resemble the past. It will be the contrary. The present is already beginning to resemble the future.
Therefore, all participants across every link of the agribusiness value chain must come together in an integrated strategic planning connecting pre-farm, on-farm, and post-farm sectors.
We won't reach the future without this systemic orchestration. Harmony must become a sacred word on Brazil's flag, because without Harmony, Order and Progress alone cannot become a Melody. Without Harmony, there's no Symphony but disorder, noise, and cacophony. Forty Years in Four. This slogan should become a mandatory agenda for whoever governs Brazil from now or later.
*José Luiz Tejon is PhD in Education from Universidad de La Empresa/ Uruguay. Master’s degree in Education, Art and Cultural History from Mackenzie Presbyterian University. Journalist and advertising professional, with specialization programs completed at Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, PACE University, and INSEAD. Columnist for several Brazilian radio networks, television programs, newspapers, magazines, and social media platforms, as well as the author and co-author of 37 books. Academic Coordinator of the Master of Science in Food & Agribusiness Management program offered by Audencia Business School in partnership with FECAP. Managing Partner of Biomarketing and TCA International.Vice President of the Fundação Brasileira de Marketing (FBM) and Associação dos Dirigentes de Vendas e Marketing do Brasil (ADVB). Head Agro Professional at ANEFAC and received the Personalidade Agro ABAG 2023 award. Previously,served as Director of the Grupo Estadão, Agroceres, and Jacto S/A.
