[Disclosure: AgFunderNews’ parent company is AgFunder.]
Conversations about ag biologicals these days almost invariably mention Brazil, where more than half of farmers use bioinputs in some form, according to research from the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (EMBRAPA). This represents a substantial lead over the US, where adoption still lags behind at around 10%.
In many ways, Brazil’s lead is a no-brainer. The country’s tropical climate enables year-round planting of many crops, which results in greater stress on the soil and often leads to increased resistance from pests to traditional chemical inputs. The same can be said for much of Latin America.
“Considering that most agriculture in Latin America is in tropical areas, there are specific weather conditions, as well as soil and other factors driving adoption of ag biologicals,” says Gustavo Mamao, head of international development at IdeeLab, which assists startups producing bio-based crop protection products.
“Thus, Latin America is inherently an excellent place to introduce biological methods to address various plant stresses. By managing plagues and environmental stress in these areas, valuable lessons can be learned and applied globally.”
Farmer adoption rates are finally starting to support such statements, as noted above, and the Brazilian government actively supports innovations via initiatives such as the National Bioinputs Program. Exits like Belgium’s Biobest acquiring Brazil-based Biotrop in 2023, in a deal valued at $569.4 million, further confirm the status of Latin America in the ag biologicals world.
Investment, too, is on the rise. After years of see-sawing up and down, VC dollars into ag biotech startups in Latin America has risen substantially in the last five years, with totals skyrocketing more than 2,000% between 2020 and 2024, according to AgFunder data.
The category, composed mainly of ag biologicals startups, was the second-best-funded in Latin America in 2024, growing over 9% year-over-year. This was down to larger deals, as the deal count was almost flat.
The vast majority of this growth is thanks to biological-based crop protection products, commonly known as ag biologicals, which have gained widespread adoption in certain markets. Brazil is the obvious leader, but other markets, including Argentina and Colombia, are slowly gaining traction in the space, too.
Ag biotech’s modest growth in Latin America is in contrast to the region’s overall agrifoodtech investment, which declined 8% in 2024 to $421 million, according to AgFunder’s 2025 Developing Markets AgriFoodTech Investment Report.
Ag Marketplaces & Fintech remains the top-funded category in the region, with $99 million raised in 2024; Ag Biotech was a close second, beating out erstwhile VC darling eGrocery.
50 years in the making: Brazil’s biologicals dominance
One significant reason for Latin America’s investment uptick is Brazil’s favorable regulatory environment, which is particularly beneficial for startups developing biological crop protection products.
Brazil’s dominance is a long time in the making, suggests Mamao at IdeeLab.
In recent years, this development has been aided by initiatives such as the National Bioinputs Program, launched in 2019, which enables on-farm production of biological products, and Law 15.070, which establishes a regulatory framework for biologicals in the country. Often referred to as “the bio-inputs law,” this legislation encourages innovation in crop protection products, particularly when such innovation can maintain production and reduce chemical use.
However, long before these developments, Brazilian research institutions had been investigating methods to cultivate staples such as soybeans in suboptimal soil. Organizations such as EMBRAPA have spent the last several decades transforming Brazil from a net importer of food to a net exporter, thanks to their efforts in establishing microbial crop treatments as part of the country’s agricultural system.
Using bacteria-based products to enhance nitrogen fixation was one of the country’s earliest biological breakthroughs, says Mamao.
“It set the stage for other biologicals to be disseminated and adopted by Brazilian farmers.”
“The high demand for nitrogen application, along with the extensive areas of agricultural cultivation, and the fact that Brazil lacks an adequate supply of this commodity, have made Brazil a pioneer in researching alternative methods of nitrogen fixation,” he adds.
It’s only been in the last few years that the regulatory framework has caught up with these factors.
As Mamao notes, “It stopped being a hurdle for agricultural biological expansion, and relative to other countries, became one of the most adapted to the specifics of biological products compared to product chemicals, on which all the agricultural regulatory framework is based.”
There are also numerous incentives and programs for research and development in Brazil, which help strengthen the country’s scientific infrastructure and innovation capabilities.
Brazil’s total farmland is roughly 351 million hectares. According to data from the National Association for the Promotion and Innovation of the Biological Industry (ANPII Bio), 156 million of these are treated with bioinputs, up 13.4% from 2023. The bioinputs industry generated R$ 5.7 billion (USD ~$1.1 billion) in the last crop season, and the sector is projected to grow by 60% by the end of the decade, according to ANPII.
‘A clear trend of growth and adoption’
The hope is that Brazil’s dominance can spread outwards to neighboring markets. Júlia Emanuela de Souza, director of institutional relations for ANPII Bio, says that her organization has been in talks with Argentina and has a delegation of Colombian authorities in Brazil to learn from its playbook.
And while Brazil may be the largest market by far for biologicals in Latam, other markets are beginning to showcase robust growth, says Franco Martinez Levis, cofounder and CEO of Argentina-based Puna Bio, which says it has developed “the first extremophile microbial inoculant in the world.”
In his own country, says Levis, products such as soybean inoculants have an adoption rate of 85–90%, which is similar to Brazil and higher than other regions.
Paraguay is seeing strong growth in row crops, “given the potential of improving yields under specific local stress conditions, and the return on investment associated with it.”
And Chile—one of the world’s largest fruit exporters—is strong in specialty crops with both biofertilizers and biocontrols.
“Each market has its particular way of developing, but all of them are showing a clear trend of growth and adoption,” says Levis.
Puna Bio closed a Series A round this year led by Corteva Catalyst; it was the latter’s first investment in Latin America. According to Levis, the company has grown its sales 8x in two years, and its products have been used on more than 800,000 acres so far.
He is optimistic about VC funding for biologicals startups in Latam, for several reasons, not the least of which is that it’s “one of the largest and fastest-growing biological markets,” he explains.
More regulation needed
There remain some challenges to overcome, many of which are common to any market adopting biologicals, whether in Latin America or elsewhere.
As ANPII Bio’s de Souza notes, biological products are more sensitive to environmental conditions (e.g., temperature) and can lose efficacy if not stored and transported correctly. Combining biologicals with other products, such as fungicides, can also potentially impact efficacy, she notes.
And despite Brazil’s friendly regulatory environment, she stresses that, in fact, more regulation is needed due to the significant amount of on-farm production of biologicals that takes place.
“We have a really singular system where producers believe they can produce biological products on their farms,” she explains. “They believe they can do it if you have a high-quality-control system and a really sanitized environment. But that’s not the reality we see in Brazil.”
Instead, she says there is a lot of on-farm production with no quality control, which leads to contamination and other safety issues.
A legal framework introduced in 2024 aims to regulate this to ensure proper monitoring and safety of products.
Even factoring in these challenges, de Souza doesn’t see the growth of the biologicals sector in Latin America waning anytime soon.
“We have many harvests that need certification, like cotton or coffee, and these need more sustainable products. So [farmers] started using biologicals because of that. The Ministry of Agriculture understands they have to stimulate this sector so they can attend to the needs of growers.”
Top rounds 2024
Illustrative of the country’s lead, the top two rounds for Latam biological companies went to Brazilian startups: Agrion Agrisolutions, which is developing fertilizer alternatives for sugarcane, and Gênica, which has a bioinputs portfolio for the corn and soybean industries.
Argentina-based Puna Bio, known for leveraging extremophiles to produce bioinoculants, and Chile’s BotanicalSolution, making a biofungicide, were also among the top-raising companies in 2024.
“The next few years look very promising for agricultural biologicals,” says Mamao. “We can see many of these tailwind effects (high levels of farmers’ adoption, more adapted regulatory frameworks, innovations coming to the market, etc.) playing in combination.”
