Basf is investing 2.5 million euros to expand production of inoculants and biologics in Argentina

Basf announced an investment of 2.5 million euros to increase 30% of its inoculant and biologics plant Santo Tome in Argentina. Since 2015, BASF's production at the plant has increased by more than 10% year-on-year, prompting BASF to invest more in capacity expansion from 2019.

Santo Tome is a 1.2-hectare plant that produces agricultural biologics within BASF's Agricultural solutions department, with a floor area of 2,300 square meters. At the facility, vaccinators and biologics are manufactured using state-of-the-art equipment, the highest quality standards and the most stringent safety protocols to ensure the effectiveness of solutions from the laboratory to the field.

 The factory, which has 25 permanent employees, works with 45 suppliers in the Santo Tome and Santa Fe metro areas, focusing on contracting suppliers of local goods and services to create indirect jobs.

 Gustavo Portis, BASF's director of Agricultural Solutions for Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Bolivia, said: Sao Tome's facility is strategic and is BASF's only facility in Latin America dedicated to the production of biologics for the seed treatment sector. Upgrading this facility is another testament to our long-term commitment to Argentina, where we have been doing business for more than 70 years."

 Florencia Palacio, Plant and Operations manager at BASF, said: We incorporated the new 15,000 litre bioreactor into the bioreactor in the biotech process. We have partnered with a domestic supplier to develop a unique aseptic automatic packaging technology in the market, which will improve the quality of the solution. We have also teamed up with the same local supplier to build a robot team so that the packaging process is more efficient.

We export solutions from Argentina to Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay. In addition, in 2021, we exported Gelfix inoculants to Brazil for the first time, which had previously only been produced locally in Brazil. In 2022, we doubled our supply to 40 percent of Brazil's demand for the vaccine."

Inoculants are a key element in the development of biologics, and BASF's commitment to developing more sustainable solutions to improve farmers' productivity is strategically important for BASF in Argentina, the company said. Similarly, the plant has been working to improve water efficiency since 2019, achieving a 32 percent water saving target in 2021.