STUCK IN THE

MUDWhat is holding back entrepreneurship and economic growth in the agricultural world?

Juan Pablo Hurtado L.Pereira, Colombia

2013Image: Brazilian Pantanal Landscape (J.P. Hurtado 2013).

Express yourself Question

• H. What do you believe are the greatestchallenges facing the sector or industryyou would like to specialize in at IE? Whatrole do you hope to be able to play in thissector or industry in the medium term?

Going on a tripdown meory laneto my childhood in Colombia.

Images by Corbis

Coffee was everywhere. (Juan Valdez genuinely could have been your neighbor)

Images by Procafecol

The growth of this magical bean ran the economy, maintained social equality, and even allowed us to have lots of fun.

Me having fun on a coffee plantation as a teenager

Images by J.P. Hurtado

The coffee growing hub ofColombia was richer thanmost other regions in theCountry, but moreimportantly it was an oasisof peace in a war torncountry.

Typical family farm in Colombia's Coffee growing hub.

Images by J.P. Hurtado

But this relative prosperity that had been achieved did not last.

• Colombia went from the second to the 6th place of top coffee exporters in between 2002 and 2012

• The importance of coffee production in the Colombian trade balance fell from around 71% in the 1950´s to about 3.8% in 2009

• Crop yields fell from 14.7 Ton/Ha. In 2007 to 8.5 Ton/Ha. In 2011 .

• The Coffee growing hub of Colombia became the region with the highest unemployment in Colombia despite having some of the highest % of population

with higher education degrees.

• The mass economic migration phenomenon that Colombia suffered on the late 90s´s and early 00´s was largely focused on the same region that used to be a staple of economic and social development.

Scary Statistics

Sources: Dane, Fedecafé, FAO

Working on agriculture is only for those not smart enough to find a good

job elsewhere

Behind this there was a long standing social paradigm…

Many factors contributed to this situation. However above all it was easy to see Colombian farmers which were the cornerstone of the economy were not ready to compete with the world market.

Mothers would tell theirchildren that if they don´tstudy hard enough, theywould then be stuckworking on a farm.

Even people that were maderich by agriculture preferredto be referred to as landowners rather than farmers.

Son, I made enough wealth

out of this land to make sure

you never have to work on it.

Images by J.P. Hurtado

People working in agriculture

Social imagery of failure

As I got to travel around the worldsetting up IT projects for agricultureand having to deal directly withfarmers of all types, the patternseemed to repeat itself.

Sugarcane in Swaziland

Pineapple in The Philippines

Vineyards in California

Images by J.P. Hurtado

Oil Palm in Indonesia

Almonds in Australia

However we can no longer afford to have agriculture as the underdog of the world economy.

• The UN estimates world population will double by 2050.

• Due to global warming, soil erosion and water sources depletion our capacity to produce sufficient food to feed an ever growing population will be highly diminished.

• Many top producers of staple crops such as rice, maize, and wheat are suffering worrying trends of decreasing outputs due to the unpredictability of weather patterns and water scarcity.

• Millions of people in developing countries have entered the middle class and thus have changed their diets demanding more animal protein which take significantly more resources to produce.

Even Scarier StatisticsSources: FAO

A Paradigm shift on the way society views people who work in agroindustry and agro industrial technology.

• Highly educated• Successful• Valuable member of

society• A model to emulate

1) Bringing some our best and brightest people back into agriculture at a time we need them most.

2) Just as Taylor, Fayol and Ford changed forever the way we manage industrial firms, we should create new management parameters and best practices for agroindustry.

3) Many engineers and scientists should be lured into work on agriculture´s most pressing technical challenges, creating on their way companies that will become the new technological giants that could potentially generate thousands of highly qualified jobs.

Ensuring that all of these efforts translate into areality where having a rich and nutritious meal 3times a day will be certainty instead a luxury forall of the inhabitants of this planet.

Images by Corbis

Some Conclusions

• Reversing human capital divestment in the agro industrial sector is on of the major challenges for the industry.

• One of the main causes for this divestment is the low social value associated with working on agroindustry and agro technology related jobs.

• There is a pressing need to reinvent agroindustry as a whole due to environmental and demographic challenges of unprecedented nature.

• Bringing fresh talent to the technological and organizational development areas might cause a ripple effect that revitalizes the entire sector.

“When the Last Tree Is Cut Down, the Last Fish Eaten, and the Last Stream Poisoned, You Will Realize That You

Cannot Eat Money”

Image: Colombian coffee growing hub landscape (J.P. Hurtado 2013).

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