Seeds of Innovation

“Sometimes that's more satisfying for me, personally, than the economic question. That you suddenly meet someone on the street or in a place and there they greet you, you don't even know who they are, but they tell you that one day you recommended your pastures and it works for them. That gives you a lot of satisfaction. It is part, I think, of why we have made a lot of synergy between Papalotla and CIAT, we see ourselves practically as a family, because our fundamental goal is the benefit of the community and we have to transcend and leave something of an impression also on people and in the countryside”

“The sales network is always supported. Above all, from the municipality, in its type of land, all the characteristics of the land where it is going to be planted. Better material is recommended to them and they are accompanied. Our sales network and technical advice are essential. It's accompanying him. Until what? Until the customer is satisfied”

“How did all this start? One of the founders of Papalotla visits Brazil and they always say this from the commercial area: “this company was born of love, of a love story”. Because this person falls in love with a Brazilian girl, maintains a relationship with her family and they begin importing grass seeds into Mexico. And he, too, always said that he had the dream of returning improved pastures to Africa, because these pastures originated there. Well, in that small intention of the year 1992, it now counts us as the main producer of Brachiaras seeds”

“Pastures with digestibility, with good quality, tell you about the impact: you can earn 700 grams per day per animal and at the same time you can reduce up to 55% of methane emissions produced by a cow. And that's because he has less time to ruminate and more time to eat. The digestibility aspect of developed pastures is incredible potential”

“The biggest impact that has been achieved is a more efficient use of land. All these hybrids that have been released, regardless of whether they are for a dry, humid environment, or shade, have allowed an increase in the number of heads per unit of area. If in the past it was possible to have one cow per hectare, with some of these hybrids it has been possible to obtain four cows per hectare. So that has made it possible to optimize livestock farming, making better use of the land. And the idea itself is that livestock farming will be concentrated in a smaller area and the other area will be available for other crops, or for generating forests. This has perhaps been the biggest impact that, if all the technology that comes with the hybrid is adopted, it is possible to increase the number of head units per hectare and thus it is possible to optimize livestock systems”

“For an institution, such as the Bioversity & CIAT Alliance and the CGIAR, the financial side should never be the primary motivation to enter into a relationship with a private sector. This is not our mission and it is not our vision. I think it's very important to keep this very clear and this also means that you are not in a relationship with a trading company that only offers money. Never, never, never. There must be a beneficial relationship for both of us, but for the CGIAR this aspect of the impacts on producers and of having the social and environmental aspects very present is very important. I think that's one of the successes of our relationship with Papalotla.”

“What people don't see is that fodder is the carpet of the world. When you stop planting cane or potato or any crop, what comes out there? Pastures”

“Our vision: we want to consolidate ourselves as the international leader in improving the production and distribution of improved pasture varieties, whose effectiveness, in facilitating the establishment of highly profitable meat and milk production systems around the world, has been proven. Well, you, CIAT, are part of that vision”

“The seed is a living being that breathes”

“When I finished college in 1982, everyone wanted to go to CIAT, that was the best thing in the whole world. Life would give me, after 20 years, the privilege of, not just knowing CIAT, but of being part of the CIAT project, because the impact it has had on livestock in the tropics is immense, because this has really boosted the production of meat and milk”

“We were born with a dream to bring technology to marginal areas of the world and to see these small producers benefiting from the technology transfer that we bring to them. Nor are we going to limit ourselves to the fact that they are only small producers, we also have businesses with large producers. But our main function is that: to be a company that pushes towards compliance and towards the improvement, in terms of profitability, of these small farmers”

“Papalotla comes from Nahuatl, the indigenous Mexican language and what it means is the place of butterflies. So in Nahuatl, “papa” was butterflies and “lotla” was the place, so Papalotla is the place of butterflies. This idea comes out precisely to highlight this metamorphosis in cultural terms, how people evolve, as if they were in the likeness of a butterfly”