The opportunity

Over a multi-year period, Portico’s Managing Partner advised a leading global provider of agricultural inputs on market expansion in five countries.

The company faced market access challenges due to the distorting effects of state fertilizer subsidy schemes; fragmentation across a small-farm customer base; and low awareness around the crop yield and resilience benefits of using advanced, nature-friendly inputs.

An opportunity was identified to (1) strengthen last-mile distribution to become more responsive to customer needs; and (2) diversify in-country partnerships to ensure adaptability in the face of shifting government policy. 

The solution

Drawing on ground-level insights across the value chain—from farming communities, extension agents and aggregators to offtakers, agricultural lenders, and policymakers—Portico’s Managing Partner developed tailored recommendations for each market.

These centered on five themes:

• Investing in modernized inland depot networks further within day-delivery range of ‘bread basket’ farming regions, alongside digital platforms that offer tailored agronomic advice
• Transitioning from a product focus (‘supply push’) to addressing crop- and soil-specific needs (‘demand pull’), especially for high value export crops
• Co-investing in export infrastructure, such as secure warehousing or modernized port terminals, that connect smallholders to global markets
• Galvanizing public-private partnerships to drive market-oriented policy change; e.g., allowing vertically-integrated companies to select, import and distribute inputs according to farmer need—rather than imposing bulk procurement mechanisms that only permit traditional synthetic fertilizers in specified volumes and import windows
• Selective pullbacks—reverting to arms-length distributor models—in countries where structural barriers exist to the emergence of an ‘open market’ for inputs. For instance, in markets committed to import controls, dumping practices (including government-to-government fertilizer deals) or blanket subsidies