PTFrom field to cash: how rural properties create, organize and capture value
Producing well is only the start. In western Paraná, Brazil, 22 farmers growing grain, meat, vegetables, flowers and honey told how they built their businesses. The thesis looks at them through the value cycle (create, organize and capture) and finds four business models, from artisanal farms to properties integrated into large supply chains. Explained in 12 screens.
The value cycle: what a property creates must be organized and, in the end, captured as income, and then the cycle starts again. Drag to rotate.
Value is not just the harvest: it is created, organized and captured
The thesis uses the value cycle proposed by the advisor, Dimária Silva e Meirelles (2019). A business model is the way a property goes through the three stages, and what it learns in the last one feeds the first.
Tap a stage of the cycle.
Charts 14 to 16 and Figure 20 of the thesis (conceptual model), based on Meirelles (2019). In brackets, the technical names the thesis uses: creation, configuration and appropriation.
Hardly anyone has studied how farmers capture value
The author searched three research databases for studies on business models and value in rural properties. 57 articles remained: the topic is growing, but hardly anyone looks at the whole cycle, and capturing value had none.
Twenty-two stories, chosen to cover different kinds of property
Between February and August 2024, the author visited properties in western Paraná and asked each farmer to tell the story of the business: how it started, what changed, who they work with, how they sell. Crossing the type of property, the technology and the production system gave 64 possible combinations; the research reached 22.
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Propertyunder Brazil's Land Statute: rural enterprise, family property, minifundium (too small to support the family) and latifundium (large estate)
Systemcrop: managing one crop or herd · production: several, combined on the property · farming: tied to the organization of the region
Chart 21 of the thesis (one row per property); our counts. The 22 accounts were recorded, transcribed and reviewed by the interviewees themselves (Chart 20).
Each property has its own cycle: pick one
For each of the 22 properties, the thesis names the strategic decision that drives each stage of the cycle. Compare a grain farm with an organic smallholding or a fish farm.
Sections 6.1 (creation), 6.2 (configuration) and 6.3 (appropriation) of the thesis, summarized by us in the author's words. The business model comes from Figure 47 (screen 10).
Three paths to creating value: gain scale, diversify or stand out
Read each property's value-creation decision and say which path it took. Grain farms bet on scale and efficiency; fish and crop-livestock-forestry farms diversify to reduce risk; honey, flowers, lamb and most organic growers look for a niche.
Our grouping, based on the wording of each property's value-creation decision (section 6.1). The thesis describes the decisions one by one, without adding them up into groups.
Inside the farm gate: the family in charge, a spreadsheet in hand and the cooperative alongside
Organizing (configuring) value means deciding with which people, machines, money and partners to produce and deliver. In the accounts, management is mostly family-run and simple, and cooperatives provide inputs, technical assistance and markets.
Tap a block of the property.
Who sets the price? Hardly ever the farmer
The interviewees describe a market in which the farmer is a price taker with little bargaining power. Capturing value depends on how the price is set: by international exchanges, by agreements with cooperatives and companies, or case by case.
Price bands from Figure 47 of the thesis; each property sits in the band of its business model. Tap a property to see its appropriation decision (section 6.3).
For farmers, value is money, but also work, land and family
The author asked what value means in the business. Before you see the result, pick the word you would say.
Graph 4 of the thesis. The total (46) is our sum: there are more answers than interviewees, and the thesis does not say how many each farmer gave. Family, quality of life, the future and community, the author says, link value to heritage and identity.
Four business models, from artisanal to integrated
Putting the three stages together, the thesis draws a map: more technology and scale to the right, prices more tied to international markets towards the back. The 22 properties form four groups.
Approximate positions, read from Figure 47. The red pin is our simulation: it moves to the chosen point and shows the closest region, which does not replace the thesis's case-by-case analysis. ICLF = integrated crop-livestock-forestry.
Being a family farm does not define the business model
Half of the family properties are in the most technological and integrated model. All grain farms are in model 4; meat appears in all four. Change the view and tap the blocks.
Our counts, crossing Chart 21 (property type, technology, system and product) with Figure 47 (business model). The thesis describes this crossing of the four dimensions in chapter 6.
Seeing your own cycle helps you choose the path
Farmers
Looking at all three stages, not just the harvest, shows where value slips away. Joining supply chains standardizes production and price; selling directly takes a brand, logistics and customer relationships. Our reading of the thesis.
Cooperatives and supply chains
According to the author, the four models help discuss whether a business can join a value system and how to share, in a balanced way, the gains generated along the chain.
Government and rural extension
The author suggests governments use this picture to communicate public policies and rural extension programs, since family and commercial farming have different models.
Researchers
Repeat the study with numerical data, measure the links between the stages and add performance indicators such as costs, productivity and market share.
What this research does not say
- Only western Paraná, in the Atlantic Forest biome: other biomes may have other business models. · according to the author
- Not every combination turned up: for example, large estates and minifundia with some technologies were missing. · according to the author
- These are 22 convenience cases: they show the variety, not how common each model is in the region. · our note
- There are no profit or income measures: the study describes how each property creates and captures value, not how much it earns. · our note
- The four models are a proposal drawn from the accounts; the author himself suggests testing them with numerical data. · according to the author
Credits
PAULA FILHO, Aécio Flávio de. Modelos de negócio da propriedade rural no Oeste do Paraná: uma análise a partir das dimensões de criação, configuração e apropriação do valor. Tese (Doutorado em Administração de Empresas) — Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie, São Paulo, 2025. Advisor: Prof. Dr. Dimária Silva e Meirelles.
This version simplifies the work for a general audience. The property names are those the thesis itself publishes; the full charts, the value-cycle figures for each property and the references are in the original text (in Portuguese).