Advising the Agricultural Sector

Q: What is the main differentiating value of GCMA compared to other companies dedicated to the same line of business?
A: GCMA was created in 1996 with the objective of offering information services to the agricultural market in light of the commercial opening that took place in Mexico after NAFTA’s implementation. Our first service was to offer bulletins with information on prices – mainly of maize, wheat and sorghum – to companies that were grain consumers, as well as to help the government with studies of the agricultural sector. GCMA supports and advises companies, producers of all sizes and the government.
We began our activities in the grain sector, but then we jumped to the livestock segment and to the fruit and vegetable segment. In this sector, GCMA is the only company, with the government, that handles information on production, demand and prices. This means that GCMA serves the entire range of the country’s agri-food sector with national and international information. GCMA has 92 customers and 40 employees who are responsible for the following areas: analysis and information, consultancy and studies and projects.
Q: What is GCMA’s protocol when obtaining and analyzing the large volume of information that its clients need?
A: We receive a lot of public information in real time. In addition, our analysis department is constantly interpreting what is happening in other markets such as Chicago. We also collect information from companies, which we interpret and send to our customers, and we have our own information that we get from people scattered throughout the country who send us data on crops, climate, planting, demand and offer.
With that information, we generate our own bulletins classified by commodities, products or currencies, in which we also offer global perspectives, because this is a global market. The government also publishes its figures and with that information we outline our perspectives on each business area in which our clients are interested.
We make future projections based on historical issues such as the seasonality of prices. A very important part of our work is to be the first to inform about what happens in the sector. Our clients include producers and organizations of producers, grain consumers, marketers, transport agencies, banks, state governments and the federal government. This means we analyze the whole production chain, from the seed to the final price in store.
Q: Given this new political scenario, how can the national agricultural sector take advantage of all the free-trade treaties opened by Mexico?
A: The arrival of Donald Trump to the US presidency has been an incentive for Mexico to look for other markets, although Mexico already imports from countries like Brazil, Argentina, South Africa, Russia, Ukraine and France. It is a matter of market freedom, but the sector is so strong that it should not be afraid. The largest market for the US agricultural sector is Mexico, to which must be added the existence of the logistics efficiencies between both countries.
Q: What role has GCMA played in the growth of the agricultural sector in Mexico since the founding of the company?
A: GCMA has played a leading role in the grain market’s order. Agricultura por contrato (Agriculture by contract), the model that is followed when marketing crops, was developed by GCMA for the federal government and today we remain its advisers. Producers always want to know who will buy their crops and at what price, so the objective of this model is to ensure the sale and price of the crop from the sowing and Agricultura por Contrato guarantees these two variables. In addition, thanks to technology, producers have a greater knowledge of what is happening in markets like Chicago or Kansas City and GCMA has also played an important role to make this happen.

GCMA is a consultancy with over 18 years’ experience and specialized in the agricultural sector. It contributes to the development of commercialization strategies for producers, marketers, service providers and the government