Swiss company Vegalab has said Latin America is 'far more open and advanced' than other parts of the world in terms of natural and sustainable farming practices, as it announces Costa Rican biotech company Inbiosa will distribute more of its products.

Inbiosa currently serves both the Costa Rican and Panamanian markets, and will take on seven more of Vegalab's ecological products to take the total number to 12.

The two companies have been working together for the last three or four years, and Inbiosa's success in the region has led to it becoming a 'gateway' for Vegalab to enter new Central and South American countries.

"They have been very successful and they have added new products to their assortment, and essentially as a result of their success we've been able to expand our distribution in Costa Rica," Jill Duggan, who heads up North American arm Vegalab LLC, told www.freshfruitportal.com.

"For the past few years we've been working with Inbiosa and they've done so well with our products that it was natural for us to begin expanding for us into Central and South America."

Vegalab also now has distributors in Nicaragua, and is growing its presence in Peru, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador and Puerto Rico.

Latin American countries generally have a relatively high level of chemical pesticide use compared to the rest of the world, and Duggan said it was one of the company's goals to change this.

However, she emphasized this was no short-term process.

"You can't change any market that is used to using synthetics overnight - that's just not going to happen," she said.

"We believe that by proving the efficacy of our products and increasing our presence in that country, over a period of time it will naturally convert itself. Going in the door and expecting a rapid conversion to sustainable from synthetics is not a realistic goal."

Duggan added that education was Vegalab's key strategy to getting Latin American farmers to understand the benefits of natural sustainable products.

"We spent a lot of time, energy and money educating the farmers of all sizes on how to convert from synthetic to all naturals," she said.

"So we have given them a strategy that's a natural progression path to each year incrementally switch out without interrupting productivity in any way."

Duggan said the response in Latin America to its products had been 'tremendous', and thanks to Inbiosa the company would continue to grow its regional presence even more.

"There's nothing better than doing business with people that share your philosophy, that want to improve the environment and are looking for product innovations," she said.

"The people in Costa Rica in particular are very very open to new products, they're very advanced when it comes to agriculture and that's just a pleasure to do business with them because of that outlook."

With the excellent reception for its products and continuously increasing demand, the future is shaping up to be positive for Vegalab.

"We're getting inquires from all over the world," Duggan said.

"Last week I was on the phone with two different companies from Morocco and Israel, so the demand for all natural sustainable products is growing globally, but in particular in Latin America. They're far more open and far more advanced."

Photo: Wikimedia Creative Commons

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