BPMoney – Agriculture 2026: Executives reinforce data to reduce volatility

Brazil’s BPMoney ran this story summarizing our Farm, Food & Fuel event in Portuguese. Here is the English translation.

Pressured exchange rates, high interest rates, and climate risk increase the margin of error; the sector is betting on data, hedging, and standardized metrics to gain predictability.

Brazilian agribusiness enters 2026 with a combination of factors that reduces the room for guesswork: a more volatile exchange rate, high financial costs, and recurring climate risk. This trio increases the margin of error in crop, logistics, and cash flow decisions, and therefore demands more technical management than in previous cycles. This interpretation gained strength in São Paulo during the Bloomberg Farm, Food & Fuel event, which brought together executives to discuss the challenges of the supply chain, from planning to risk management.

The common thread in the conversations led by Eduardo Passarelli, Head of Corporate Sales at Bloomberg in the United States and Latin America, was this: the sector doesn’t lose competitiveness due to a lack of scale. It loses it when it makes decisions too late, with incomplete information and without adequate protection. In this environment, independent data and standardized metrics move from being merely “supportive” to dictating strategy.

Exchange rates, interest rates, and climate: why 2026 is likely to be more difficult.

The volatility of the Brazilian real appears as one of the main operational risks. The exchange rate influences input prices, export revenues, and margin readings, and the market already incorporates, in part, fiscal uncertainties and the electoral cycle. Thus, an abrupt variation changes the producer’s budget and also the timing of sales.

At the same time, credit remains expensive. With high interest rates, the cost of carrying inventory, financing operating expenses, and rolling over debt weighs more heavily. Therefore, the word of the year tends to be predictability: maintaining cash flow, planning disbursements, and avoiding surprises.

The weather, however, amplifies the dispersion of results. In other words, the average may be good, but the difference between an “excellent harvest” and a “failed harvest” grows. Consequently, risk management ceases to be an isolated area and begins to influence production decisions.

Hedging and benchmarks: the discipline that has returned to the center of agriculture.

With increased risk on the horizon, there is a growing appetite for hedging instruments and independent benchmarks to guide decisions. This applies to currency, commodity prices, and even logistics costs. In practice, the sector seeks to “lock in” part of the outcome, rather than relying on a single scenario.

This trend is particularly important because costs remain under pressure. The exchange rate for fertilizers remains unfavorable at various points in the cycle, while logistical bottlenecks continue to drive up expenses. Thus, even when productivity improves, margins don’t automatically “breathe.”

Export and competition: Asian demand on the daily radar

Brazil remains competitive in grains and livestock. However, global competition is intensifying, and exporters need to keep a close eye on it.

• the evolution of demand in Asia,
  sanitary requirements,
• Changes in import policies and tariffs.

Precision agriculture

The central thesis of the event was that models based solely on historical data are no longer sufficient. The sector needs to combine up-to-date information, predictive analytics, and an integrated view of risk.

This shift is supported by evidence. The FAO describes precision agriculture as a data-driven approach that improves productivity and reduces the need for inputs such as water, fertilizers, and pesticides. Furthermore, the European Patent Office (EPO) points out that digital agriculture technologies are growing at a rate well above average: patent applications have advanced at an average annual rate of 9.4% , about three times the average rate of other technological fields.

In practice, this explains why “data” has become as strategic an input as fertilizer: it reduces error, improves efficiency, and shortens response time.

(By Eduardo Passarelli, Head of Corporate Sales at Bloomberg in the United States and Latin America)