“Agribusiness offers several investment opportunities, including farmland, agricultural production, logistics and technology, among others…”
Olivier Colas is a partner at Buri Asset Management and cofounder of Funchal Investimentos. Colas holds a degree in Economics from Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris and completed executive education at Harvard Business School.
Colas previously served as president of Coimex Trading and vice president of Kepler Weber. Colas works in agribusiness and capital markets, with experience in fund structuring, corporate restructuring and investments in farmland.
AgriBrasilis – Is it still worth investing in agribusiness?
Olivier Colas – Absolutely. The world population continues to grow and demand more protein and is expected to reach 9.7 billion people by 2050. The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) projects global soybean production to reach 500M tonnes by 2035, compared with 428M tonnes in 2024/25, growing faster than the population.
Demand for biofuels, including sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and automotive ethanol, will also require Brazilian farmland to absorb around 60% of this additional demand. With its combination of arable land, sunlight and water, Brazil remains a natural frontier for capturing this growth. This thesis guides much of our work at Buri Asset Management (Buri).
AgriBrasilis – Where are the best opportunities and who is willing to invest in the sector?
Olivier Colas – Agribusiness offers several investment opportunities, including farmland, agricultural production, logistics and technology. Technology, including seeds, fertilizers, precision monitoring and storage, has been driving soybean and corn productivity.
Logistics, despite improvements since 2000, still faces bottlenecks. Around 60% of grains are still transported by road, which is less efficient over distances above 500 km and can account for up to 30% of the final production value.
The lack of storage capacity also reduces farmer profitability by limiting the ability to take advantage of price differences between crop seasons. Fertilizers are another important area. More than 80% are imported, and developing a domestic industry for products such as organomineral fertilizers and biochar has become almost a matter of urgency.
Finally, farmland itself represents an opportunity. Prices have moved away from their long-term historical trend, creating an opportunity that Buri seeks to capture through its farmland fund, Cultiva, which targets high-quality properties available at significant discounts.
AgriBrasilis – Farmland is selling at discounts of up to 40% compared with 2022. Is there still room for prices to fall?
Olivier Colas – Individual transactions may occur below that level, but this is not the market standard. In general, farmland prices in Brazil are influenced by global soybean prices, China’s inventory policy and the exchange rate.
Brazilian soybean production is expected to reach 181.6M tonnes this crop season, compared with 180M tonnes in the previous season, which should not put significant downward pressure on prices.
The exchange rate is also influenced by the Selic interest rate, which began to decline and reached 13.75% per year in September 2026. This is still a punitive level for a sector that depends heavily on working capital and investment.
A normalization of interest rates, combined with higher soybean prices in Brazilian reais, are the minimum conditions needed to reverse the current discount in farmland prices. We believe these factors could materialize over the next 18 to 24 months.
AgriBrasilis – How can investors distinguish a good discounted property from a bad investment?
Olivier Colas – Investors need to be clear about their objective: agricultural production, a long-term investment in the property or speculation. Each objective and each crop require a different strategy and determine the requirements for soil quality, rainfall, topography and logistics.
The reason for the discount also needs to be investigated. It may be financial, related to the seller’s situation, or caused by a temporary legal issue, such as an estate settlement. These factors can normally be reflected in the price.
More complex legal issues, such as disputes involving public land, quilombola or Indigenous areas and document fraud, require specialized assessment and may make the acquisition unattractive.
For investors who are not farmers or are unfamiliar with the sector, the best approach is to work with experienced professionals with an established reputation.
AgriBrasilis – What are distressed assets and why are they becoming increasingly relevant?
Olivier Colas – Several agribusiness segments currently have distressed assets, including agricultural input distributors, processing companies, farmers, grain traders and transport companies.
The combination of lower commodity prices, higher fertilizer costs, elevated interest rates and defaults created a perfect storm that affected the entire sector, including banks, farmers and intermediaries.
This is a good time to position capital. The period after a crisis typically brings asset redistribution and greater market concentration, while the next cycle of gains tends to benefit those who entered earlier.
Specialized capital is moving toward distressed investment funds, but the real competitive advantage lies in finding and accessing opportunities. This is where a team with years of experience in the sector, structuring and managing agribusiness-focused funds since 2019, as Buri has done, can differentiate itself.
AgriBrasilis – How is the increase in bankruptcy protection cases changing investment dynamics in agribusiness?
Olivier Colas – Bankruptcy protection cases in Brazilian agribusiness increased 66% between June 2025 and June 2026, involving around 1,263 companies and farmers, with total liabilities of approximately US$ 7.28 billion. Farmers accounted for 59% of the requests, concentrated mainly in soybean, coffee and livestock operations.
The impact on investment has two main components. Banks and trading companies are selling portfolios of non-performing loans in an NPL market that still has relatively limited participation from capital specialized in agribusiness.
At the same time, leveraged farmers are using bankruptcy protection to renegotiate debt and, in many cases, raise capital by selling farmland. This creates opportunities to acquire properties from owners facing liquidity problems.
To capture both trends, Buri is structuring complementary products: Renaissance, a receivables investment fund focused on acquiring distressed agricultural credit at a discount, and Cultiva, a farmland fund focused on assets owned by farmers facing genuine financial stress.
The competitive advantage is not simply having capital. It is having a well-established network that provides access to opportunities before competitors.
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