Farmers betting on farmers, cooperatives backing technology
In the first week of June 2026, a delegation of Argentine agricultural technology companies traveled to New York Tech Week not merely to pitch ideas, but to demonstrate that the people closest to the land had already begun transforming it. Startups like DeepAgro and Suyana arrived with working systems — one slashing herbicide use through artificial intelligence, another making climate insurance accessible to farmers who have never had it — backed by a venture fund owned, unusually, by farmers themselves. It was a quiet but consequential signal: that the answer to feeding a warming world may be emerging not from distant laboratories, but from the fields where the problem is felt most directly.
- With less than 5% of Latin American agricultural production insured against climate events, the exposure facing millions of farmers is not a policy gap — it is a slow-motion crisis waiting for the next drought or flood to detonate.
- DeepAgro's AI weed detection system cuts herbicide use by 90%, but its real disruption is economic: it hands individual farmers a tool previously available only to industrial-scale operations, compressing the payback period to under two years.
- Suyana's parametric insurance model, built by two Harvard-trained researchers, uses satellite imagery to price climate risk at a scale traditional insurers have never attempted, rewriting who gets to be protected and at what cost.
- Innventure's fund — born inside an Argentine agricultural society and owned by hundreds of farmers and cooperatives — is quietly dismantling the gatekeeping logic of venture capital, letting producers invest directly in the technology reshaping their own livelihoods.
- The New York showcase drew partnerships with Starlink, Nvidia, and Syngenta, signaling that what began in Argentine fields is now operating across more than 40 countries and attracting the attention of the world's largest technology and agribusiness players.
New York Tech Week in June 2026 became the stage for an Argentine delegation with an unusually grounded message: that the most pressing technological problems of the age — feeding people, managing climate risk, reducing chemical dependency in agriculture — were already being solved by startups rooted in the country's farming culture. Organized by Arcap and the Argentine Consulate, the delegation brought investment funds, tech companies, and a cohort of agritech startups whose work had already crossed continents.
The heart of the Argentine presence was a panel organized by Innventure, a venture fund with an origin story unlike most. It was created inside Aapresid, Argentina's agricultural society, and is owned largely by farmers, cooperatives, and rural businesses — people who grow food and decided to invest in the technology transforming how they grow it. The fund has backed 19 Argentine startups now active in more than 40 countries. It is a model that breaks the traditional logic of venture capital, allowing producers themselves to own a stake in their own competitive future.
DeepAgro exemplifies what that investment has produced. The company's computer vision system identifies weeds in real time and triggers herbicide application only where needed, reducing chemical use by 90 percent with a payback period under two years. After proving itself in Brazil, it expanded into the United States and secured partnerships with Starlink, Nvidia, and Syngenta — a trajectory that began with Argentine farmers and ended in the boardrooms of global agribusiness.
Suyana approached the same underlying crisis from a different angle. Founded by two Harvard-trained researchers — one Argentine, one Bolivian — the company uses satellite imagery and predictive modeling to offer parametric climate insurance at a price and scale that traditional insurers have never managed. In a region where extreme weather routinely destroys harvests and conventional coverage is financially out of reach, Suyana is building a new arithmetic of protection: one where the risk is distributed widely enough that farmers can actually afford to be covered.
What New York confirmed was less about novelty than about proof. Argentine agricultural technology is not theoretical — it is operating, scaling, and attracting the world's largest partners. And behind it are farmers who chose not to wait for someone else to solve the problem, but to fund the people already solving it.
New York Tech Week arrived this June as the planet's innovation hub, drawing thousands of entrepreneurs, investors, and corporate leaders into a single week of pitches and panels. Argentina came to show what it had built. A delegation organized by Arcap—the Argentine association for private capital and seed investment—and the Argentine Consulate in New York brought startups, investment funds, and tech giants like Globant and the fintech wallet Lemon. The message was clear: Argentine technology was solving the world's hardest problems—feeding people, growing food, surviving climate change.
The centerpiece was a panel called "The Americas Feed the World: AI, Climate & the Next Food Revolution," organized by Innventure, a fund with an unusual origin story. It was born inside Aapresid, the Argentine agricultural society, and is owned largely by hundreds of farmers themselves—people who grow crops and raise cattle and decided to invest their own money in the technology that could transform their work. On stage were Fernando Yu, who founded Suyana; Matías Nardi from DeepAgro; and Mayco Mansilla and Nicolás Reinoso from Innventure. Reinoso, an Argentine living in North Carolina and connected to First Flight Venture Center, one of America's leading startup incubators, had just joined the fund's team.
The numbers told the story. Innventure has invested in 19 Argentine startups that now operate across more than 40 countries on five continents. This is not venture capital as usual. It is farmers betting on farmers, cooperatives backing technology, small businesses becoming investors in their own future. The model breaks the old gatekeeping—it lets producers and suppliers and regional networks own a piece of the companies that will make them more competitive.
DeepAgro is one proof of concept. The company built a system using computer vision and artificial intelligence that watches crops in real time and identifies weeds. Once it spots them, farmers can spray herbicides only where they're needed—not across the whole field. The result: herbicide use drops by 90 percent. The payback period is less than two years. The long-term effect is higher profit margins and, as a bonus, far less chemical in the soil and water. After establishing itself in Brazil, DeepAgro began moving into the United States, attracting major investors. Now it has partnerships with Starlink, Nvidia, and Syngenta. Large agricultural companies like Adecoagro and Amaggi in Brazil use it. So do individual farmers of significant scale, including Hugo Ghio and José Alonso.
Suyana took a different path into the same problem. Two professionals with doctorates from Harvard—one Argentine, one Bolivian—founded the company to sell parametric insurance and manage climate risk. In Argentina and across Latin America, farmers have almost no protection against extreme weather. Drought, flooding, hail—these events destroy harvests, and traditional insurance is too expensive to make sense at scale. Suyana uses satellite images, artificial intelligence, and predictive models to strip away the cost. The company can now offer climate coverage to farmers at a price and scale that was impossible before. In a region where less than 5 percent of agricultural production is insured against climate events, Suyana is building a different math—one where protection is affordable and accessible, where the risk is spread wide enough that farmers can actually buy it.
What happened in New York was not just a showcase. It was a signal that the model works. Argentine farmers are not waiting for someone else to solve their problems. They are investing in the people solving them. The startups are not theoretical exercises in Silicon Valley—they are operating across continents, signing deals with global companies, and changing how food is grown. The climate crisis is not abstract. It is in every drought, every flood, every season that looks less predictable than the last. And the technology to manage it is being built by people who know what it means to lose a crop.
Citações Notáveis
The model democratizes venture capital, allowing producers, small businesses, and cooperatives to be not just users of technology but direct investors improving competitiveness across the food chain— Innventure representatives at New York Tech Week
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why does it matter that these are Argentine companies? Why not just say they're agritech companies?
Because capital and talent have geography. When a farmer in Brazil or the United States chooses DeepAgro, they're choosing an Argentine solution. That changes how the country is seen—not as a place that exports grain, but as a place that exports the thinking to grow grain better.
And Innventure—the fund owned by farmers. That's unusual?
Completely. Most venture funds are built by people with money looking for companies to buy into. Innventure is built by people who actually use the technology, who understand the problem because they live it. That alignment changes everything about which companies get funded and how they're built.
So when Suyana sells insurance to a farmer, the farmer might also own a piece of Suyana?
Exactly. The farmer is no longer just a customer. They're an investor in their own future. If Suyana succeeds, they benefit twice—once from the insurance, once from the investment.
What's the climate angle here?
Both companies are built around the fact that climate is becoming more volatile and unpredictable. DeepAgro lets you use fewer chemicals in a world where water is scarcer. Suyana lets you survive the droughts and floods that are coming more often. They're not fighting climate change in the abstract—they're helping farmers adapt to it right now.
And the New York stage—why does that matter?
It signals that these companies are not regional experiments. They're global. When Starlink and Nvidia partner with DeepAgro, when investors in New York are watching, it means Argentine innovation is competing at the highest level. It's a moment where the country's agricultural knowledge and its technical talent become visible to the world.