A taipa is a ridge of earth built by rice farmers to retain water. It is soft by definition and also represents an important part of their capital. A planter that applies too much pressure does not cross it; it destroys it.
That was the example Adolfo Felippa chose before an audience of engineers, students and farmers to explain what distinguishes an Agrometal machine. He did not bring a planter to the conference. He brought a row unit.
“You cannot apply too much pressure on a taipa,” he says, “because it falls apart.”
The speaker is Adolfo Felippa, CEO of Agrometal. His entire career had been spent in the automotive industry: he joined Renault at 18 and left Paris to settle in Monte Maíz.
Now he explains taipas.
He started at 18
When the conversation turns to why he made the move, Felippa does not mention the position. He talks about motivation. He says he now feels the same drive he had when he began working in the automotive industry and that he wanted a change.
The most difficult transition involved vocabulary: moving from automotive terminology to the language of farming and coming into direct contact with the land.
His view of the industry he joined is not sentimental but based on its position within the value chain. He argues that this is where the entire food production system begins and that the company’s machinery contributes to an irreplaceable link. Everything else, he believes, can be transferred. The international experience and methods he acquired in the automotive industry can also be applied to agriculture.
The invitation came from Rosana Negrini, president of Agrometal. Felippa believes his appointment responded less to a personal choice than to the needs of a new stage. He thinks he was recruited because of the changes beginning to take place in Argentina and notes that, since then, they have worked and moved forward together.
Needed yesterday
Agrometal’s transformation did not begin with him. The company had started the process two years before his arrival. What changed afterwards was the speed, and Felippa is explicit on that point: the company began accelerating because acceleration was necessary.
The reason he gives is the opening of the economy. Unlike much of Argentina’s manufacturing sector, which views it with suspicion, he interprets it through his own professional experience. He comes from an international industry, where competing against manufacturers from other countries is normal. He argues that competition forces companies to improve.
This leads to the objective guiding his management: to globalise the company, turn it into an international business and take Argentine products to other markets. He presents it as a dual opportunity, both for the company and for the country, and adds something that is far from insignificant in Argentina: after many years, it is once again possible to plan and look towards the future with optimism.
The only limit he sets is time. He says the company cannot afford to wait and must move quickly. He defines the deadline with a phrase he often repeats: this new Argentina needed it yesterday.
From row 1 to row 36
The strategy is supported by actual machinery. When Felippa presented the new APX L, he explained where its design had come from: not from the engineering department, but from what customers had told the company.
The key issue raised by farmers was uniformity: maintaining the same planting quality from the central row to the outermost one —row 36— while distributing the load evenly across every unit. A machine should not be judged by what it does in the centre, but by what it achieves at the edge.
The same principle applies across the rest of the product line, where development focuses on three variables that have traditionally competed with one another: machine performance, planting quality and soil protection. Improving one at the expense of the other two is easy. Aligning all three is the real challenge.
For this reason, Agrometal changed the way it presents itself at industry conferences. The aim, Felippa explains, is not simply to display a machine, but to show its evolution. The row unit is also the easiest component to discuss from a technical perspective. The company brought two pieces: the rice-seeding row unit, which can also be used for small grains, and the CPR unit for row crops.
He values the format because of the feedback it generates. He describes it as a process of mutual learning between the company’s engineers and farmers: a discussion about technology and what is coming next.
The roadmap he draws from that exchange can be reduced to three points: more technology, a stronger focus on the planting system and listening to customers to understand what they need.
What is beyond his control
Up to that point, everything depends on his decisions. The problem appears when the conversation moves to the moment of purchase.
Felippa describes the situation without embellishment: a difficult Argentina, affected by movements in the dollar and bank interest rates. In that context, the variable determining whether a planter is sold lies beyond the factory’s control.
His demand is direct. Farmers need support from the banks and, for the agricultural sector, that support is essential. He says it twice in succession.
He acknowledges one government measure —the reduction in export duties, which he describes as a first step— and immediately asks for the next one: stronger action on interest rates.
The combination
For Felippa, the coincidence between his arrival, the company’s 75th anniversary and the new economic climate is not accidental, but a synthesis. He speaks of a combination: his appointment, the anniversary and a different Argentina. His conclusion is that Agrometal is now different as well.
The results of the agricultural exhibition season confirm that interpretation. He says the company arrived with expectations, achieved good results and found that people were noticing the difference.
He comes from an industry where the launch of a new model is planned years in advance, with the calendar in hand.
He arrived in one where the calendar is set by interest rates.
