Can you briefly explain the history of Grupo Lucava, and describe the company’s vision and mission?

Grupo Lucava is over 50 years old and was named after its founder, Luis Cano Vazquez. Myself and a group of shareholders acquired it from his widow in 1987, and we have been in the Mexican agrochemicals market since then. Our company produced malathion, an old insecticide, yet not dangerous. However, we ceased production to focus on the sale of formulated products, and today we are in the national market providing products to Mexico’s large agriculture sector.

Our mission is to bring health to the field: heal crops and protect them from bugs and parasites with our products. Grupo Lucava has been growing, on average, 16% every year during the last 10 years. Our company has approximately 220 collaborators, and we aim to grow in the farming sector, the urban sector, and even Mexican households.

What range of agrochemical products does Grupo Lucava offer, and which crops do they apply to?

Lucava’s products are insecticides, fungicides, foliage fertilizers, a line of sulfurs, and we have entered the Mexican urban sector with rodent, cockroaches, and mosquitoes control products. We have the agricultural line of fertilizers, a line of urban control for larvae and mosquitoes to avoid the propagation of diseases like chikungunya and dengue. We also have a new line of seeds, and we want to diversify because in our plant we can make both chemical and organic products.

We are in practically all crops: from corn to berries. Our products are widely used in avocados, tomatoes and cucumbers, to name just a few. Each crop has very specific problems and we have specific solutions for all of them amongst our fertilizers, insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides.

What would you say have been the biggest challenges for Mexico’s agriculture industry in 2021, and how do you think the Mexican government could better to support the agrochemical industry?

Logistics is one of our biggest challenges now. We are at risk of facing shortages due to China's problems with energy, which forced them to close some plants, making products scarce. There is also a lack of containers, which raised their price fivefold, and we even need to enter a waiting list to get them. I think the situation will not get back to normal until the second half of 2022.

Regarding the Mexican government, it could expedite COFEPRIS’ (Comisión Federal para la Protección contra Riesgos Sanitarios) product registration: if COFEPRIS was slow before the pandemic, now it is worse. Furthermore, I do not consider their criteria for import permits to be professional but rather ideological. This slows down the whole industry and plays to the detriment of the Mexican field because products like glyphosate are not allowed in, even with all the permits in order.

Can you tell us about Grupo Lucava’s organic products?

We are developing new products through our innovation department with mixtures and tests and trials, and have three approved patents. Here in Mexico, Grupo Lucava is a great trader of sulfur, and our sulfur is famous for its degree of grinding and its higher quality than our competitors. With it, we are creating mixtures for plants because besides being a fertilizer, sulfur is also an acaricidal fungicide, and is used for pH regulation.

To what extent is the topic of sustainability influencing the agrochemicals market?

There has been a migration from chemical to organic products, but it is very slow because there are still no organic products that could solve all the problems faced by the field. However, the market for organic products is growing and exporters are the ones who are taking the most care not to use fewer chemical products. In Mexico, most chemical products leave no traces and pose no danger because dangerous chemicals have been banned already. Although this is a noticeable trend, I think it is a long way to go to make a full switch to organic.

What are Grupo Lucava’s main objectives and priorities for the next two years?

Lucava’s main objectives include a sales increase of 20% per year and obtaining registries for the more than 40 applications we have submitted to the COFEPRIS. As for our plant, we believe it will not take us more than two years to saturate, which is why we are looking for new facilities to expand and maintain the sales growth we expect.

Training of personnel is also a fundamental part of our growth, which is reflected in sales and profits. We are currently developing Lucava University, which started five years ago, and we want to obtain the permits from the Secretariat of Education to have our courses officially recognized. From there, we can develop our personnel, their children, and others interested in our training.