The king of soya focuses on a high-tech vision of farming

Argentina's "king of soya" wears his crown reluctantly. Gustavo Grobocopatel winces at the mention of his nickname, dismissing it as just the result of people "putting a face" on a story - in this case, Argentina's remarkable rebound from its economic collapse in 2001, powered by its booming soya industry.

"I'm not the only one who was doing what I was doing, I didn't invent anything. It's unfair the position I occupy," says one of Argentina's most influential business leaders and a pioneer of its soya industry, which took off in the 1990s to become the third-biggest exporter of the beans in the world after Brazil and the US, and the top exporter of soybean oil.

In reality, Mr Grobocopatel is anything but regal. The jovial, bulky 53-year-old, who moonlights as the singer of a folk music trio, meets the Financial Times in the trendy waterfront district of Puerto Madero in Buenos Aires wearing a short-sleeved shirt tucked into his shorts.

His bearded, ruddy cheeks betray his rural origins: he was born into a family of "Jewish gauchos" in the fertile plains of the Pampas some 200 miles outside the capital city. His great-grandfather, who lived in what is now Moldova, joined the wave of immigration to Argentina in the early 20th century when it was one of the most prosperous countries in the world.

Despite his success - Mr Grobocopatel's innovative management practices are the subject of business school studies, including Harvard - he remains down to earth. He recalls that his own studies were not at all promising: "When I graduated as an agricultural engineer I was told I had no future, but it turned out to be a blessing."

Indeed, Mr Grobocopatel was able to apply his knowledge to Los Grobo, the family business which his father Adolfo founded in 1984, the same year he graduated. The young Gustavo suggested planting soya and set about modernising the company. Before long they were among the first in Argentina to adopt the most advanced techniques being pioneered in the US, such as no-till farming and transgenic seeds, and so revolutionised productivity.

Within three decades, he had transformed the company from a small-time family business with scarcely a thousand hectares of agricultural land to an international operation, which remains privately owned, farming up to 350,000 hectares with revenues of more than $1bn. It had become one of Latin America's largest producers of grains, also including wheat and maize.

Lately, though, the "king of soya" has been accused of abdicating his throne. Los Grobo has been gradually cutting back its grains production, after making a "tactical, not strategic" exit from Brazil, and today farms 50,000 hectares in Argentina, compared with 120,000 hectares three years ago. That is partly because farmers' profits in Argentina have been obliterated by taxes and trade restrictions implemented by the government of President Cristina Fernandez, as well as runaway inflation, while commodity prices have tumbled.

But a more market-friendly administration is expected to take power after presidential elections in October, and Mr Grobocopatel bats away fears of the end of the commodity boom.

"Price is not synonymous with boom," he says confidently. "Every day there is greater demand for grains. What happens is that there are temporary decouplings which make prices rise or fall, but for me the bo om continues."

As optimistic as ever about the prospects for Argentina's powerful and advanced agricultural sector, Mr Grobocopatel says he is simply preparing for the future. Arguing that technology will become more central to agriculture, he says Los Grobo is shifting its focus from growing soya to providing services, especially biotechnology and precision planting.

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He is convinced that Argentina's vibrant and entrepreneurial farming sector is perfectly positioned to be at the vanguard of a "new green industrial revolution", as developments in 3D printing, nanotechnology, robotics, communications and artificial life converge. More traditional farming powerhouses like the US are too protected and inflexible, he says, while European farmers are "so subsidised that they are almost like gardeners; it doesn't matter if they produce more or less".

Leaning across the table, eyes narrowing, Mr Grobocopatel then launches into an impassioned speech on his vision of the future of farming, in which he believes we are going to have to think of plants as factories, which can produce energy, bioplastics, enzymes, even molecules. "A plant is a factory without a chimney, it doesn't emit carbon dioxide but it consumes it; it is a factory that uses the light of the sun, or renewable energy; it is a factory which is in the countryside, reversing migration to cities back to the countryside; it is a clean factory that resolves problems of food security, the environment, geopolitics and rural poverty."

With that in mind, Mr Grobocopatel is preparing to launch a precision planting project called Frontec, a joint venture with a state-owned satellite company. By using satellite imagery to determine soil quality and yields, he thinks he can help farmers boost their operating profit about 30 per cent by optimising the density of seeds planted, and the amount of fertiliser used.

He thinks it will revolutionise agriculture: "This technology is to agriculture what the microscope was to medicine."

<>Los Grobo's diversification has been enabled by its flexible business model, renting much of the land it farms and outsourcing labour and machinery. Although agricultural land in Latin America has been one of the hottest hedge fund and private equity plays in recent years, Mr Grobocopatel says this strategy has helped his company to adapt to the diverse risks it faces, from the climate, to politics and prices.

And in the long term, he believes that the technological expertise in which he is investing is going to be worth more than land anyway.

"The difference between rich and poor is not going to be determined by capital but by knowledge, and the flow of that knowledge," he says. "The closer you are to the technological and knowledge revolution, the greater your ability to capture value . . . and I believe that sooner or later the market will copy that."

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