How Leontino Balbo gained 30% of the world’s organic sugar market by listening to nature

Growing up on the his family’s sugar mill in the surrounding farms and fields, Leontino Balbo grew up like Rudyard Kipling’s ‘Mowgli’, fishing in streams, disappearing for long days into the jungle and marshes in the area. His childhood experiences informed his deep sense of love and respect for nature, which he integrated into pioneering new techniques of sustainable and organic agriculture that has been able to bring to large-scale with remarkable success.

Leontino says:

“The principle behind [my] agricultural management is to activate the alive forces which are present in the ecosystem and how we do that? I learned it observing in the forest, how the ants, how the termites, how the earthworms act along the different the stages of the year. Winter, summer and so on. I took 15 years to learn how to replicate a natural production model into a commercial production model.

This includes replacing chemical fertilizers by ground rock, almost for free. The results are better with ground rock.”

Not only has Leontino implemented agricultural systems that are friendly to the environment – both natural and human – he has been able to do so with less cost and thus more profit.

To learn more about Leontino’s model and how he developed such overwhelming success in his mission to bring sustainability into commercial agriculture, watch Leontino Balbo: Listening to Nature Sustainablizes Big Agriculture, in dialogue with GlobalLeadership.TV’s host Walter Link.