Optimizing Livestock Production with Innovative Climate-Smart Grazing Solutions

Cattle ranching has one of the highest impacts on natural ecosystems in tropical forests, promoting deforestation with high carbon and biodiversity costs. With over 250 million heads spread in Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, and Paraguay, ranching activities dominate arid and semiarid landscapes across vast South American geographies. Ranching is also an important economic activity for these countries (from 1 to 5% of national GDPs). Furthermore, it is a valuable source of livelihood for local and small rural households in subsistence agriculture schemes. Consequently, developing a more climate-smart cattle ranching is urgently needed for the tropical regions. Cattle ranching sustainable intensification has been deemed essential to release pressure on native forests and promote local and regional economies. In Terratio, we developed software that boosts sustainable intensification. Terratio provides precise tools to measure, monitor, and report the carbon and productive impacts under current practices, at the time it generates scenarios and identifies financial mechanisms to enhance sustainability in ranching. We are in a unique position to provide information aimed at reducing the carbon footprint in ranching systems in different socio-ecological environments in a scalable, robust, and scientifically supported way. Our algorithms support decision-making not only to reduce productive inefficiencies but to increase carbon sequestration improving the overall carbon balance. Our financial mechanisms allow farmers to implement non-profitable practices such as native tree planting, which has multiple benefits not only from carbon balance but for biodiversity. 

Our solution is based on a web and mobile platform designed to digitize all the cattle ranching production processes. Our dashboard allows farmers to have a narrowed view of key productive, climatic, and environmental indicators on their farms. Additionally, farmers can see spatial patterns of the process such as woody encroachment, harvesting efficiency, grazing biomass, or woody or soil carbon sequestration in very high-resolution maps that are updated monthly. Many of these maps have been developed for the first time in Terratio software, as the productive capacity index, which is analogous to yield maps of cropping systems. All our algorithms are based on scientific evidence, and peer-review validated literature. Moreover, farmers find a space to analyze investment scenarios based on quantitative analyses, where they can account for paddock by paddock which would be the payback of restoring grasslands or increasing water pounds. Finally, our solution is oriented toward finding financial mechanisms to reduce the carbon footprint through investments that can increase carbon sequestration such as native tree restoration or water distribution infrastructure. We currently do this through the development of a carbon credits and footprint certification process. 

Our solution is designed for those who manage the land, but it also serves different stakeholders across the beef value chain. For the bottom users or farmers, our platform provides insights on how to improve the productive and sustainability dimensions of cattle ranching. As part of our methodology, our algorithms are curated and designed with and for farmers of each region. For example, our algorithms in Wet grasslands in Eastern argentine differ in purpose and fundamentals that those deployed for Tropical dry forest. We identify a huge target objective with more than 80 Million hectares of grassland in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil and Paraguay, or more than 2,500 and more than 60,000 medium to small ranchers just in the Argentinean, Paraguayan and Bolivian Dry Chaco.  

Moreover, top users in the food chain or stakeholders that are interested in buying beef with transparent and robust indicators on carbon footprint, can be supported by Terratio, who provides a particular visor for those who want to trace and verify productive and environmental metrics of farms. Finally, companies that look for incorporating high quality carbon verified credits, can use Terratio as a credit provider. 

Most of the companies providing nature-based solutions for the industry or other organisms normally approach sustainability problems from a top-down perspective. This include syndromes as having a poorly understanding on what the practices are the farmers current implement, and how these practices could be improved. Moreover, current carbon estimations do not incorporate the complexity and variety of land management as differences in instant stocking rates, mowing frequency or grassland restoration techniques. This is particularly true for cattle ranching where carbon balance is estimated through coarse and inaccurate approaches as modelling of spectral signal to certain. In Terratio, we use well know and international approved methodological frameworks that can be certified but articulated in a unique way and feed with precise data on land management. All the monitoring is done in a digitalized context which allow data traceability and transparency. Terratio is in a middle ground position where data collection and farmer confidence, and the technology for scalable and robust monitoring systems encounter. Finally, Terratio is addressing the sustainability problem of becoming climate smart the ranching production from a perspective of those that manage the land, working with farmers as a potentially climate solution rather than against them.  

Our Platform, that is functional since September 2023 is still under improvement. We are operating in the South American Dry Chaco, but we are expanding to two different ecoregions in Argentina (Espinal and Wet Chaco) and one ecoregion in Bolivia (Chiquitania). 

As our software provide the bases to dynamize certification process, we are presenting our first carbon project certification process to an international certification organism in July 2024. The project description and many adjacent documentation is already prepared. 

Our solution has been deployed in 430.000 hectares with more than 70 farmers and agricultural engineers as customers. Nowadays, 150.000 hectares that are fully using our platform, will start to certify carbon credits during the following year. Three of our customers are using the carbon balance information to certify carbon footprint in their commodities under ISO standards. 

We need to create international confidence and support for our project, connecting with stakeholders that are interesting in support changes in farmer practices for sustainability, to promote supply change transparency, or just to use regenerative agriculture as off-set or in-set compensation mechanism. Terratio needs to demonstrate  that it is not only a promise, but a fact, to being recognized for change toward more climate smart agriculture. Unfortunately, these opportunities do not occur within the network of farmers, in which Terratio is highly connected, but with multiple stakeholders, many of them outside South America. 

We highlight two main innovative systems that are quite unique in the market. The first involves combining a mechanistic model with remote sensing products to precisely estimate herbaceous biomass in landscapes with trees and shrubs. Previous attempts to correlate spectral signals with herbaceous yield have been unsuccessful in complex structural vegetation units.

The second innovation integrates the RothC model, one of the most well-known models for analyzing soil organic carbon dynamics, with our biomass model and grassland management information at a 30x30 meter resolution. This bottom-up approach utilizes detailed land management information to monitor carbon sequestration on a large scale in robust and transparent ways—a capability currently lacking in the industry of nature-based solutions. It is important to remember that soil carbon sequestration is a key strategy for reducing the impact of agricultural systems. We urgently need to understand, on a large scale, how different practices affect this process under various environmental conditions

Cattle ranching is the most extensive land use in South America, and we see a significant opportunity for this industry to reduce its environmental footprint and become more climate-smart. For years, researchers have stressed that sustainable intensification of ranching is essential to lessen the environmental impact on natural ecosystems. However, until recently, practical solutions guiding farmers on how and where to implement sustainable intensification have been lacking. Additionally, the relationship between grassland management and carbon sequestration remains poorly understood, with recent scientific reviews indicating that the effects are highly context-specific. Within three years, Terratio's database, covering 2 to 5 million hectares of pastures with data on grassland management, beef productivity, and carbon fluxes, will provide a unique opportunity to advance these practices globally. We aim to understand, across various socio-ecological conditions, how to develop more climate-smart ranching systems. We strongly believe that grazing livestock can coexist with better environmental conditions than those offered by more intensive agricultural methods. We envision a future for the tropical dry forests and rangelands of South America, where technified and data-driven ranching coexists with restoration processes and practices that respect biodiversity

Our metadata indicates a 1.4 Tn CO2eq/ha increase across more than 70,000 hectares since we began implementing our first carbon credit process. We started planting trees in the first 200 hectares of pastures in different configurations. Carbon sequestration in such sites will boost to 8.0 Tn CO2eq/ha during the next 20 years. We aim to expand our tree-planting model to more than 5,000 hectares during the next two years.

Additionally, we observed the potential to increase beef production by an average of 30% by enhancing both the number and distribution of water ponds in grassland paddocks. This increase can reach 50% with combined grassland restoration and water harvesting, potentially rising to 120% improvement. These figures highlight a significant yield gap in current systems that can be addressed without additional deforestation. Such initiatives must be supported by data and real-world examples, as demonstrated by Terratio.

Our core technology is founded on comprehensive knowledge of  modelling ecology and system behavior. We utilize machine learning and deep learning methodologies to generate remote sensing products, which are integrated with dynamic modeling of processes such as biomass growth and soil organic carbon sequestration. By combining this data with land management information from our platform, we create a unique synthesis that produces precise information on carbon fluxes and beef productivity. Despite many of our models are novelty designs or integrations, we based our development on peer-reviewed scientific background. 

Additionally, during the next quartiles we will integrate hardware technology to close even more the uncertainitie in some of the keys variablse as grassland biomass or soil organic carbon sequestration. We will incorporate gps information in animals and Lidar technology to imrpove more our biomass estimation models. 

In total, the company has now eleven persons of staff and 6 more providing services weekly. Our development team consists of seven individuals. Three are web developers, one specializes in cloud and deep-learning computing, and another works part-time. Additionally, three scientists contribute to our science-based solutions: two part-time and one full-time expert in remote sensing and data analysis. We have one carbon and certification expert providing services as a contractor. 

 Our commercial support team includes three full-time staff members, along with our CEO. We also receive legal, accounting, and marketing support from five contractors

Some of the algorithms were developed at a previous company called GANAR, where several co-founders have worked for the past six years. All the data used to calibrate and validate the models have been collected from our scientific work over the last 15 years. We established Terratio as software in August 2022 and launched our first version of the platform in September 2023

At the moment 7 of the 16 persons in relation with the company are women. People working in the company are living in different argentinean districts and comes from different backgrounds. 

Our business model involves a user fee per hectare of rangeland under analysis, ranging from $0.3 to $1/ year depending on the services required by the farmer.

Additionally, we charge 40% of the carbon credits we certify to cover the costs of monitoring, reporting, verification, and project development. We also aim to expand financial support for tree planting through off-take agreements.

Beyond our platform, we provide consultancy services to governments (B2G) and non-profit organizations (B2B), using our algorithms to address specific questions

We aim to increase the number of hectares with full use of the platform to cover our baseline cost (Now 100,000 hectares). We aim to start the certification process of our first carbon credit during july, to close a off-take agreement during the end of 2024.