“When farmers start looking at their own data, they see where they are actually losing money…”
Maurício Schneider is the CEO of Aegro, co-founder of Solubio, and former CEO of StartSe Agro. He is an entrepreneur, angel investor, and member of the United Nations Accelerate 2030 program. Schneider holds a degree in business administration from the Federal University of Santa Maria and an MBA in project management from Fundação Getulio Vargas.
Aegro simplifies farm management by connecting field operations data with office-based financial controls on a single digital platform. The company also operates a market intelligence division that develops research based on anonymized data from thousands of hectares.
AgriBrasilis – What is the current stage of farm management in Brazil?
Maurício Schneider – From a management perspective, there are very distinct groups. On one side are large corporate groups that have already transitioned from family-run operations to companies and manage farms as businesses. These groups are doing very well and can even grow during crises. On the other side is the majority of Brazilian farmers, who still make decisions without data.
Here, I want to make an important distinction: this is not only about technology. Technology helps organize data, but if farmers are not committed to organizing that data, they will not make decisions based on numbers, with or without a system. Management means making decisions based on data. What is missing is the discipline to access the right data at the right time. Those who do this are winning the game, and this explains the difference of more than 100% in profitability between the top 10% and the lower end of the ranking.
AgriBrasilis – Where do farms lose the most due to management failures?
Maurício Schneider – When farmers start looking at their own data, they see where they are actually losing money. When we analyze operating costs, the biggest difference is in input purchasing management: pesticides, fertilizers, and even machinery sizing. Buying in the right window instead of the wrong one can mean a difference of up to 100% for the same item.
In our soybean profitability ranking in Mato Grosso, the top farms harvested almost the same as the average, only 3.7 bags per hectare more, and still earned more than twice as much. The difference was not in the field; it was in the purchasing decision.
AgriBrasilis – What are the main reasons behind the deterioration of farmers’ margins?
Maurício Schneider – There are four forces putting pressure on margins, and together they create a very difficult scenario. The first is poor cost management: farmers sometimes pay twice as much for the same product. The second is the decline in commodity prices. This is an external factor, but it is also related to management. We have seen that farmers who monitor their data sell soybeans at prices around 3% higher than those who do not track the numbers. This can also be mitigated through barter and by choosing the right time to sell.
The third factor is the cost of capital: interest rates have never been so high, and credit has never been so scarce in agribusiness. The fourth is climate-related crop losses, which have been recurring across Brazil. Combined, these factors explain why margins are under so much pressure.
AgriBrasilis – Do farmers pay more for inputs because they lack price references?
Maurício Schneider – It is important to separate this issue by input category, because each one has its own dynamics. In fertilizers, the challenge is to identify the optimal barter ratio and understand international market dynamics. In crop protection products, the issue is tight negotiation and price quotations, with one key condition: farmers need cash available to buy in the right window. Many purchases become more expensive because farmers miss that window due to lack of cash and end up buying when companies historically raise prices.
Biologicals are where the information gap is greatest. Farmers often end up comparing apples to oranges: the same strain, at the same concentration, may cost more simply because of the brand. Management also matters, because low doses do not generate returns. There is a lot of opportunity in this segment. In Rio Grande do Sul, the most profitable farmers invest around US$ 41 per hectare in biologicals, compared with US$ 21 for the average. Seeds, meanwhile, are stable; in this case, the issue is not price, but technical decision-making: which cultivar to buy for each cycle and planting window.
AgriBrasilis – How do management data strengthen negotiations with suppliers?
Maurício Schneider – Data reduce an information asymmetry that has always existed: the real price was known by the industry and traders, not by the farmer. When farmers understand the best purchasing windows and price trends, they gain bargaining power. They can tell the seller: I saw that a deal was closed at this price with a farmer in this region, and I want the same. Or they can see that prices are falling and that it is time to buy, or that demand for a specific input has accelerated and then understand why.
These are decisions that help farmers buy better. And the numbers speak for themselves: we show the extent of price dispersion for the same product, in the same purchasing window and in the same month.
AgriBrasilis – What is the biggest bottleneck for the professionalization of farms?
Maurício Schneider – The biggest bottleneck is data entry. Farmers already have many things to deal with, and entering data is not something they like to do, nor is it natural for those working in the field. That is why the path forward is to automate data entry.
Once this is solved, the second step is understanding how information connects and intersects in order to actually support decision-making. This is what we are doing well at Aegro, with correlations, forecasts, and recommendations, identifying when one piece of data combined with another is forming a trend that deserves attention. There is no point in having a dashboard with twenty numbers if farmers do not know what those numbers mean or what decision to make. In the end, it is about automatic data entry combined with the right interpretation, so farmers can manage, buy, and sell better.
READ MORE: