My guest today is Gustavo Spadotti Amaral Castro, 42 years old. Native of Botucatu, in the interior of São Paulo. Gustavo has roots in Pardinho, where his parents maintain the property inherited from his grandparents, Anna Pillan and Horeste Spadotto – a story recorded in one of the chapters of the book Da Porteira para o Mundo, whose cover was a generous contribution from Gustavo.
Son of Sérgio Amaral Castro, a retired banker and rural producer, and Luzia Spadotti Amaral Castro, also a retired banker, daughter of rural producers from the Lençóis Paulista and Botucatu region. Gustavo has two siblings: Tharsila and Sérgio Filho. Married to Natália Corniani, with whom he has two children: Laura and Benício.
Gustavo Spadotti is an agronomic engineer graduated from Unesp Botucatu with a master’s (2009) and doctoral thesis (2012) in Phytotechnics and Agricultural Production Systems. Currently, Spadotti serves as Head of Embrapa Territorial.
Aryane Garcia – During your adolescence, did you ever imagine being in the position you are in today?
GUSTAVO – In my adolescence, I dreamed of working with the land and the people in the countryside, but I never imagined I would reach the position of leading a strategic center of Embrapa, the national passion of agribusiness. What drove me was the desire to contribute to a fairer, more sustainable, and productive sector. Today, looking back, I realize that every challenge and every lesson prepared me to take on this leadership role, which requires both technical expertise and human sensitivity.
AG – Still in your childhood, which artists influenced you who have now lost relevance with the digital revolution and the advent of the internet?
GUSTAVO – In my childhood and adolescence, I was greatly influenced by root country music. Tião Carreiro is still remembered, but names like Pedro Bento and Zé da Estrada, who were from the Botucatu region, marked me deeply. On the international scene, I have always admired Miguel Aceves Mejía, a Mexican singer who influenced the first Brazilian country artists with his ballads, rancheras, and huapangos. These are artists who carried in their lyrics and melodies a strong connection to the countryside, friendship, and the simplicity of rural life — values I carry with me to this day. But I confess that I also enjoy samba and country music.
AG – After years of learning, becoming a recognized professional in your field brings you work advantages to opine in other areas/companies in the segment?
GUSTAVO – Yes. When you build a career based on technical knowledge and concrete results, you are naturally invited to dialogue in other areas of agribusiness. Territorial intelligence, which is the specialty of Embrapa Territorial, connects logistics, environment, production, foreign trade, public policies, and even social issues. That’s why I feel my experience allows me to contribute in different spaces in the sector, always with responsibility and respect for the specialists in each area.
AG – Among your productive habits during the week, are there precepts adapted by you that were incorporated into your routine and that you now recommend to your other collaborators and younger colleagues?
GUSTAVO – An essential habit is discipline in time organization. I usually divide my agenda into blocks of priorities, balancing management commitments, science, and family. I also encourage young people to maintain intellectual curiosity, inherent to scientists: never stop studying, reading, learning, asking questions, and, above all, debating. And, perhaps most importantly, I always emphasize ethics and respect for people, because agribusiness is made by people and for people. However, a golden tip is to always surround yourself with good people, keeping haters and destructive people away.
AG – What is your overview of Brazil’s economic situation in the last 20, 10, and 5 years?
GUSTAVO – In the last 20 years, Brazil has experienced moments of instability and major challenges. Agribusiness has been, in all of them, an essential sector to sustain the economy with science, technology, and innovation. In the last 10 years, I had the opportunity to lead and participate in strategic projects that helped showcase the strength of agribusiness, such as the Macrologistics of Livestock study and the delimitation of Matopiba. Both contributed to structuring public policies and strategic investment decisions to reduce the cost of Brazil and enable territorial development on sustainable bases in our agricultural frontiers. In the last 5 years, the advancement of big data and geotechnologies has expanded our capacity to understand and communicate the rural world, clearly revealing how the Brazilian countryside is productive and, at the same time, conservationist. This strategic view is essential to guide the country’s sustainable growth and defend our country from narratives that aim to tarnish the image of our rural producers.
AG – Among the various difficulties and opportunities you have encountered throughout your career, does being part of agribusiness help you understand the country’s social situation? What are your plans to collaborate with the inclusion of more youth and women in the sector?
GUSTAVO – Yes. Agribusiness shows me daily how diverse and unequal Brazil is, but also how there are immense opportunities for inclusion. For youth and women to take up more space in the sector, we need to invest in training, access to information, and recognition. There’s only one way for the excluded to prosper: Cooperativism. I have been working to open paths in this direction, showing that science, digital technologies, and strategic territorial management are areas where new talents can thrive and promote social organization. The more diverse agribusiness is, the more innovative and fair it will be. With the spread of the Internet of Things (IoT), rural youth will be more tempted to succeed their parents in managing Brazilian properties.
AG – How will agribusiness remain strong in the coming years?
GUSTAVO – I believe Brazilian agribusiness will continue to grow because it has three very clear paths ahead to meet the expectation of accounting for nearly half of global food production growth by 2050:
Increase planted area – judiciously, precisely, and only when truly necessary.
Raise crop productivity – reducing so-called “productivity gaps,” that is, the difference between the most efficient farmers and the general average.
Intensify land use – through practices like second crop, green manures, crop rotation, and crop-livestock-forest integration (ILPF).
This set of strategies, allied with science and technology, is what ensures Brazilian agribusiness will remain strong, growing sustainably. I always bring the example of the power of irrigation to enable multiple crops in the same territory, as Brazil has immense potential to explore this technology sustainably.
AG – On a global level, does agribusiness face challenges to communicate to the world its importance in the impact of the entire production chain?
GUSTAVO – Yes, that’s one of the biggest challenges. Often, the narrative about agribusiness is dominated by simplified or distorted views that don’t show the reality of Brazilian production. Brazil is one of the countries that most protects, preserves, and conserves native areas, and at the same time, it is the world’s largest net food exporter. A country of this production magnitude still dedicates 66% of its territory to the environment and a triumph of science for the balance between production and preservation. The challenge is to communicate this uniqueness with data, transparency, and real stories from those in the field. That’s why I value so much the application of strategic territorial intelligence, management, and monitoring methods, which allow us to show precisely what happens in agricultural territories.
AG – How to convince society that agribusiness is not the main responsible for global warming? What news or headline should be debunked for having falsely harmed the sector?
GUSTAVO – With data. Brazil produces on less area than imagined and conserves much more than other major producers. The main responsible for global warming is the burning of fossil fuels, not agriculture. Our agribusiness, besides feeding the world, is a protagonist in clean energy: we have over 90% renewable electricity matrix and are a reference in ethanol, biodiesel, biogas, and SAF. Therefore, it is false to say that “Brazilian agribusiness is the world’s biggest environmental villain.” We do have challenges to face, but also one of the most efficient, innovative, and sustainable agricultures on the planet. What convinces society is transparency, the presentation of clear information on preservation, productivity, and commitment to the future.
AG – Is the popularity of rural producers at risk? What would be the reasons for the demonization of the ruralist composition?
GUSTAVO – Yes, because often the image of the producer is distorted by stereotypes and thrown-around numbers about fires, deforestation, or land grabbing. When these crimes exist, they are police matters, not representative of those who produce food for Brazil and the world. The majority of farmers work hard, respect the law, and seek sustainability. The demonization comes from the distance between countryside and city, fed by incomplete or biased information (as I say in the jargon: Follow the Money!). We need to bridge that gap and show the human face of the producer, valuing their real contribution to society.
AG – What are the biggest names in Brazilian and global agribusiness that influenced your life?
GUSTAVO – In Brazil, I admire great leaders who marked agribusiness in different fronts. In the political line, I highlight Alysson Paolinelli, Nobel Peace Prize nominee, and ministers like Roberto Rodrigues, Francisco Turra, and Antônio Cabrera, the latter recognized as one of the doctors of economic freedom. In the academic line, the masters who united soil chemistry, physics, and biology were decisive, like Eurípedes Malavolta and his disciples Godofredo Vitti and Ciro Rosolem, as well as Johanna Döbereiner, a world reference in biological nitrogen fixation. Among contemporaries, I admire researchers like Carlos Crusciol and Mariangela Hungria. In the field of territorial intelligence and integrated vision of Brazilian agribusiness, names like Eliseu Alves and Evaristo de Miranda are the exponents. In the private sector, I have great respect for the founders and maintainers of national companies like Jacto, Jumil, Stara, and Baldan, which were fundamental for the mechanization of our agribusiness. I also admire the work of Brazilian cooperatives, which transform small producers into giants of competitiveness. Examples like Coamo, C.Vale, Lar, and Cocamar show how unity strengthens the countryside, expands markets, and generates shared prosperity. On a global level, I highlight Norman Borlaug, father of the Green Revolution and Nobel Peace Prize winner, who showed how science can save millions from hunger, and who surrendered to Brazilian agribusiness. And also John Davis and Ray Goldberg, creators of the term agribusiness, which expanded the view that agriculture is not just production in the field, but a network that integrates science, industry, trade, and social development.
AG – Do you think it’s possible for Brazil to lose purchasing power and go through an economic recession? How can the country shield itself from a food crisis?
GUSTAVO – Every economy is cyclical and subject to crises, but Brazil has a trump card in its unique capacity to produce food on a large scale, with diversity and resilience. If corn faces difficulties, we have sorghum. In the second crop, we can count on wheat and other winter cereals, plus beans, peanuts, lentils, and other legumes. If needed to diversify, there’s still sugarcane, oranges, coffee, eucalyptus, and even sesame. And if the demand is for animal protein, we can expand pastures, adopt feedlots, strengthen swine and poultry farms, or expand aquaculture. Thanks to tropical technology, Brazil has an impressive range of options to supply calories and proteins in any scenario, something rare in the world. To shield itself from a food crisis, it is fundamental to continuously invest in research, infrastructure, logistics, and public policies that ensure competitiveness for the producer. This not only strengthens our economy and guarantees food security to the population, but also allows us to offer surpluses to the world, promoting global peace against hunger.
AG – If you could create some social rules that favor the productive dynamics of agribusiness and the Brazilian people, what would your bill proposals be?
GUSTAVO – I would propose three fundamental pillars. The first, land regularization throughout Brazilian territory, which is the “mother of all battles”: without it, there is no security to invest, produce, and preserve. The second is legal security, with clear and coherent laws on property and environmental licensing. The third is quality education, in the countryside and the city, to end the “us versus them” view. Countryside and city are interdependent: if agribusiness doesn’t plant, the city doesn’t eat; if the city doesn’t provide inputs and technology, the countryside doesn’t produce.
In addition, I consider essential:
1. Rural education connected to science and technology, training new innovative generations.
2. Valuing environmental conservation alongside production, recognizing those who reconcile both.
3. Efficient logistics infrastructure, reducing the cost of Brazil and expanding competitiveness.
Only with this countryside-city synergy can Brazil truly consolidate itself as the world’s supermarket.
AG – Among the various attitudes that accelerate Brazil’s growth, what is the greatest contribution this generation can deliver that will impact the next 30 years?
GUSTAVO – The greatest contribution is uniting production and sustainability. This generation has the opportunity to prove to the world that it is possible to grow without destroying, produce without depleting, innovate without excluding. If we can consolidate this mindset in Brazil, we will be delivering to future generations a legacy of prosperity and balance. Science and practice. Youth and experience. City and countryside. All connected by a greater good.
AG – If you could choose a Brazilian city to live in until your last day, which one would it be and why?
GUSTAVO – I am very attached to the interior of São Paulo, Brazil’s locomotive. Whether Botucatu, Laranjal Paulista or Pardinho, also the region of my wife’s family, São José do Rio Preto, Barretos, Catanduva or Pindorama. These cities are part of my history, my values, and my memories. But, above any place, my home is where my family is.
I would also like to add that I deeply believe in the power of science, innovation, and people to transform agribusiness and Brazil. My mission at Embrapa Territorial is precisely to show, with data and transparency, that it is possible to produce more, conserve better, and include more people in this process. Brazilian agribusiness is not just numbers. It is made of stories, families, generations that build the country’s future every day.
ARYANE GARCIA
Journalist
@aryanegarcia