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By Gustavo Grobocopatel. Publicated in clarin.com

Of course they require investments: more and better fertilizers, more efficient crop protection, more complex and sophisticated weed controls and adjustments in all the technology: sowing dates, crop structure, quality of planting, etc., etc. This complexity requires more knowledge per hectare, more scientists, engineers and all the technologies of this century. It is true that we must invest more and the lack of profitability and access to credit makes everything more difficult and slow.

The issue of sustainability also occupies a high priority in the debate: the incorporation of new crops in rotations, the control of pests and diseases with more efficient use of phytosanitary products, the need for certifications for the most demanding consumers and, above all, the responsibility in the operation of a sensitive activity for the environment and society.

In other spaces there are young people who develop agtechs, there are dozens. They are creating an ecosystem of projects and talents that experiment with artificial intelligence, IoT (Internet of Things), machine learning, robotization or biological products.

They are shaping a more complex agriculture, with more information and knowledge processing. The added value in these cases is, above all, in the process. They are building new platforms that, integrated with those already mentioned, will go through new challenges, better productivity and quality of management. New ways to produce more efficient and more friendly with the environment.

While the public agenda is occupied by politics, vibrant and necessary debate about what we are, what we do and where and how we are going, I keep thinking about these silent experiences of the struggle for competitiveness.

Nor can I avoid relating them. The challenges that excite these entrepreneurs require investment in new machinery, which must be financed by a capital market that does not exist, or exists especially for speculation; investment in public and, above all, private R & D; the use of inputs that depends a lot on the price relationship between them and what is produced, the retentions deteriorate and discourage the use of technologies The emergence of more and better germplasm requires the framework of an urgent law of seeds, just and simple .

The application of these technologies and these investments need stability in lease contracts with a law that at least makes them last for three years. An active State, open to all groups of interest, that can change in a timely manner, taking care of the interests of the majority.

In agribusiness new opportunities happen every day: the USA-China war or the African flu for example, generate a very favorable context for the transformation of grains into meat, extending the value chains, including more people, diversifying the exporting matrix.

The productive potential of grains with the incorporation of a greater proportion of double cropping and the mentioned productive ceilings can bring us close to 200 million tons.

The required investments and the externalities that can be produced encourage the steel industry, the automotive industry, the petrochemical industry, the knowledge-based industries, construction and all related services. But attention ... the opportunities pass and they also leave.

Again, the role of the State is fundamental, facilitating the access of our products to the foreign market, which needs more and more food, and to the creation of ecosystems with multiple interdependent value chains.

The public debate must give visibility to the different realities that live in our society, realities that should talk more with each other and with society.

We can twist the course of failure, quickly and successfully, it would be enough to look forward without limits or prejudices. The past must not paralyze us, the past teaches us. Build inclusive progress in a framework with an active democracy, a consolidated republic with an efficient, quality, independent Justice, creating a renewed leadership of this time.

The encounters with people who work and dream are like fresh air. The reality of those who can not work, and even less to dream, should not paralyze us, should be a permanent stimulus to transform an Argentina that yawns.

Automatic translation from spanish.