COGITO Talks… What in the World is the Tropical Economy?

This conversation took place at the 2025 OECD Latin American Rural Development Conference, Rural-Urban Connections: Pathways to Sustainable Development, which took place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil between 25-28 November 2025.

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Blurb

Imagine a world where rural and tropical regions aren’t struggling backwaters, but breeding ground for fresh ideas, new jobs and sustainable growth. According to OECD’s Rural Innovation Pathways, rural innovation isn’t just a smaller copy of what happens in cities, it’s different: rooted in community‑led projects, adaptive agriculture, renewable energy, social enterprises and creative responses to local needs.

The “tropical economy” vision isn’t pie‑in‑the‑sky, it fits squarely within OECD’s roadmap for leveraging natural capital, innovation and place‑based assets to build resilient, inclusive, future‑oriented rural economies.

In this episode of our #FromtheGroundUp series, Betty-Ann Bryce (OECD) sits down with Ingo Plöger (CEAL), for a conversation to explore how tropical regions, with abundant natural resources, rich biodiversity and favourable climate, can become engines of sustainable growth, innovation and resilient rural development. Have a listen and find out what in the world is the Tropical Economy!

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Transcript

Host

Welcome to OECD Podcast, where policy meets people.

Shayne

So, we’re continuing our From the Ground Up campaign here in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, talking about regional development policy. And today Betty-Ann Bryce from the OECD is speaking with Ingo Plöger, who is the president of the Brazilian Chapter of the Business Council of Latin America (CEAL) and a longstanding voice on competitiveness, innovation and sustainable growth in the tropics.

Ingo has been closely involved in shaping regional strategies across Brazil and Latin America, particularly on how countries can turn their natural assets like biodiversity and climate advantage into engines of economic development. So, today we look at what a tropical economy really is and where the biggest opportunities lie as well as what it takes to turn natural richness into long term prosperity. So, let’s turn over to Betty-Ann and to Ingo.

Betty-Ann

Perfect. Hello Ingo. Thank you for joining the OECD Podcast today.

Ingo

Thank you so much Anne to be so kind to have this dialogue.

Betty-Ann

So, I wanted to follow up with you on a few things because I found your talk really interesting and I wanted you to tell the audience just a bit just a step back and think about what is the tropical economy.

Ingo

It is a performance that’s quite different coming from a different nature quality. The nature quality of photosynthesis in this region is three times stronger than in the northern and in the south and hemisphere. What’s a consequence about that?

The first consequence is that photosynthesis is used in all things that are providing from the vegetables from all plants and forestry that use that to live. So, when you have sun, water and reasonable conditions from the ground you will have a possibility to exercise photosynthesis, taking from the north side. So, you can have a good photosynthesis coming from the spring to summer and a little bit in the autumn.

After autumn and winter, you have snow and maybe only some trees are possible to make it, that’s the pines because they know how to survive in this so harsh winter. That’s very small. So, if you can imagine that the northern hemisphere maybe for more than half a year has to survive with the oxygen coming not from their region.

On the other hand, in the middle of the globe you have sun, you have water and you have soil where you can have this kind of photosynthesis. Three times stronger, 36, five days in a year. So that’s a potential that gives for all things that we are producing in the agriculture for using in our landscape in the world like foot and feet or elements that came from nature that’s not eatable like cotton, wood or cellulose or even biofuels.

These are used for other areas in our human needs and more and more we are putting that into the agenda because they are substituting the fossil products like petroleum-oriented products.

Betty-Ann

Now you said it covers quite a few different areas so the big question would be how to how would we capture that? How would we measure that? How would we understand that from your point of view? Because that’s an interesting challenge, right? You have to understand it, you have to measure it, right? You have to have a way to capture it concretely. How, from your perspective, how could we go there?

Ingo

Yeah, we are also learning with that because for 50 years ago we practiced agriculture as we learned it from the Northern Hemisphere and then we saw that we could have better solutions. So, if you can think about a landscape, let’s say one hectare, one acre, that you can use the whole year.

So we learned it before that you have one harvesting and then you prepare your land, you make the correction of the land and then you plant something and harvest it and storage. That’s how the Northern and Southern Hemisphere do the agriculture. That’s natural.

But we have learned that in the same hectare, in the same acre, you can use three times in this landscape to plant, let’s say soya, you can plant maize or corn, you can plant another issue, and you have three harvesting in one year.

So, for that point of view, you have a high productivity per hectare. That’s the first issue because the photosynthesis allows that. And then you have a consequence too that the storage issue is not the same as in the Northern Hemisphere because you have time to storage and then to sell it and to transport it.

No, you have a pushing situation that the fourth first harvesting is pushing the second and the third one. So, you have to have a high dynamic in that sense. Another example, if you get in the Popen Paper area, if you see in the Northern Hemisphere Canada or the Northern countries in Europe are very strong in Popen Paper.

The trees that they plant, they need 40 years, 30 years to be harvest and they have a productivity measured by more or less 30 to 40 square meters per hectare per year. In the tropical area, you have, let’s say, eucalyptus that every seven years you can harvest with an average per hectare for 40 to 50 star meters hectare per year. So, you have three times or four times the productivity in the harvesting and the production then in the North and Hemisphere. There are two examples.

The other example is if you get in the cattle industry, you can put the cattle always on pasture side. You don’t need to get in a closure side because you have to protect them from the harsh winter. So, you have a completely different form to feed them, and you have a completely different form to have an average of productivity in that sense.

There are only three examples very fast where you can see that the productivity per landscape is quite different.

Betty-Ann

It’s quite different and I’m glad you pointed that out as metrics and I wonder, you spoke a lot about agriculture potentially, being obviously important here, but when we think about rural development more broadly, who else can, are there other kind of ways that secondary effects that could come in for the rural development economy as a whole?

So not just the agriculture side, but like the potential knock-on effects as we like to say that could come in for potential entrepreneurs or potential new firms or new entrants that could benefit from if we started to take this tropical economy and be more deliberate in that space.

Ingo

Yeah. I will answer that with another issue about innovation because then we will see the impact also, of the labour force and on the environmental, social, environmental and the other areas. We have two frontiers now in the tropical economy.

One frontier is the nano frontier where you put genetics on the road. As you have very fast response, you don’t need to wait 10 years or 20 years to have response because the productivity of the biomass is so fast that you can make these efforts very quickly.

The other frontier is the jiga frontier, is the data frontier. If you are in the area of precision, planting or precision land use every square meter you can digitalise and you know exactly what you have to do and what you can do.

So, this jiga data, you can’t in the moment used online because you don’t have connection in this field. So, you need to as offline and then you have to make the next projection or something like that.

And this environment happens in land where you have higher carpets in the land field than under the buildings. So, we are talking now that tropical economy in the agriculture side is a factory on open sky, an open sky factory.

So, imagine if you have an open sky where you have rain or sun or whatever and you have to put your carpets working offline and not online. That’s a nightmare. You have to challenge these things. This is environmental where we are pushing a lot of new innovation.

So, this kind of possibilities needs people to understand that, to have the capacity to make the right question, to bring the right instruments on software, on capabilities, to bring this on the road. So, this is fascinating for new generations, new generations want to be in this front.

So, in cities, maybe less than 400 000 habitants are very connected to agriculture. And when they have this kind of environment, the young people want to be part of that. So, to learn about this kind of things and to be able to do that is exactly what they are doing every day, getting from the cell phone to the computer to the networking and this environment is very exciting and brings that, the people on a new kind of work, empowered.

So, you see young people in this field getting involved. You see diversity, increasing diversity. You see a lot of women in a leadership in the agriculture site in that kind of landscapes. So, it’s a huge challenge for the society to understand that’s different that I’m not working in a clothes shop, I’m not working in an office, I’m not working in a factory, I’m working in an open sky factory, but I can do that in my office too.

So, on Monday or Tuesday, I don’t need to go there because I have it in one day in my office to do that. And then I go to the land field to see that or not to see that. That’s a completely different kind of perspective of working situation.

Betty-Ann

So, you talk a lot about the attractiveness of it potentially to young people and also to women and the possibility of even if it’s agriculture, it also could resonate to an open up opportunities outside of agriculture so you could have some great knock on effects.

Now let’s talk about Brazil, lovely, lovely to be here by the way. But is it just, is this just something for Brazil? Is this just the tropical economy? Does it just resonate with Brazil or are there other countries that would see this as something that they too should be thinking about, right, beyond and wondering themselves how to realign or reassess what they’re doing around this idea of promoting a tropical economy?

Ingo

Yeah, that’s a fascinating question because we also in Brazil have not disharmonized. We are in an area of central West Brazil where we have this kind of situation. In the thought of Southern hemisphere, we have a mixed up about this and intensive agriculture using or not using technologies. And then we have the northeast where we don’t have this kind of issue.

So inside Brazil, we have very different. So, in these differences, we are trying to understand ourselves how we can spill off of this kind of new frontier to the old frontiers that has a lot to do also with open mind because a lot of minds are close to this. They say, “Oh, agriculture, I don’t like it. And it’s old fashion”, and so on.

And the other say, “No, look what they are doing. Look what they are demanding. Look what is happening.” So, this is a process happening in our society and it’s only the beginning. So other countries are looking about that and say, “Wow, what is kind of people are saying, what are they kind of people are doing? Let’s see.”

So, we have some Australians coming to us. We have from New Zealand coming to us, from Indonesia coming to us, India. And now some African countries came and say, “I want to know how you are doing with that or that and that and how we can or not can”, and so on.

So, one of the corporations that also in the COP30 was an issue is how we can build up alliances. So, this kind of alliances could be in science and technology. How we can transport that. How we can build up issues that are similar because the adaptation is very important.

Not every landscape is possible for everything. So, the learning effect about what’s going on or not. Then you have a different kind of solutions. For instance, for degradated pastures, that is an important issue in a lot of areas. We have an integration about forestry, about the area of pastures for feet and also with cattle.

And that’s a rotation system. And that’s very interesting because you have earnings in a very short part if you have on the soya base in the middle period of three years like cattle and seven years in the period of wood.

But you have a difficulty to have a financing because you said, “What are you? You are not one and not two and not three.” So we say, “No, we are integrated.” “Yes, I understood, but how you wanted to finance myself.”

So also, this kind of solutions has to be found out because the old system of financing is different if I have soya or if I have trees or if I have this one. So, this kind of processes are very important to be understood and to have the right partners to help to implement.

OECD for instance is a fantastic platform because they have learning systems they have understood and they are bridge builders between nations.

Betty-Ann

So what would success look like for you when the tropical economy in 15 years?

Ingo

You know Ann, in 15 years we will be here in Rio de Janeiro and checking our dreams. And I am sure that we both will say, “Wow, how many of them would be reality?”. Because people accept to be with us a dreamer and to make visions. One of them is it is possible for all people and all agriculture, small or large.

The other issue is it is easier than I could imagine. The third issue is we have made huge progress, but we have brought other problems. We see now how important is education. We see now how important is infrastructure. We see now how we have to be aware about metrics. We didn’t see it before.

So, I see that these world of tropics that I put on has contaminate the tropics of Africa, the tropics of India, Indonesia and others. But we have a side effect because other people in the agriculture side of the north and side that have began to lose their hopes, they say it is possible to learn about that because the next generation could be different.

And why not make something together with these guys of the south? They are crazy but they are very nice and they open-minded. So, I suppose in 15 years we have a lot of other people here and asking us and celebrating the progress together.

Betty-Ann

So one of my final question that I have is that I think is relevant is around governance. We talk a lot, you talk about changing minds and you are talking about agriculture which is probably one of the policies that are more inflexible as we say.

So how would and what you are also talking about the economy and economic development? It feels like it is not just agriculture policy that needs to come into play. Other economic development or broader policies need to come in. So how do we bring those actors to the table? And maybe you have no answer but we should ask that question. How do we convince them?

Ingo

I think the first step is to bring curiosity to people and say look, did you know, no I never heard, that is impossible. So, the second step is bringing knowledge or interest and then hope. If you have hope to change, if you have hope to make things that could be very good, all the other things and reliability comes as a consequence.

We have to build up alliances to have the same dreams, to have the same visions. That is the most important issue because all the other things in metrics financing are consequences. And I am sure that we are on the way to begin this journey.

Betty-Ann

Well, Ingo, thank you so much for the talk today and we look forward to talking to you again soon.

Shayne

And that is a wrap on the Tropical Economy. Hopefully you come away from this episode knowing way more about the Tropical Economy than you did before. For more on rural development policy at the OECD, you can Google us, thanks for listening to OECD podcast.

Host

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