Rancho Nexo and Mexico
Our team in Healthy Hydroponics is checking out the international market! Last month I had the opportunity to visit Mexico with Rancho Nexo and participate in a trade show and various events. Rancho Nexo is a company that provides Canadian entrepreneurs connections and opportunities with many key figures in the Mexican agriculture industry. For this trip, they organized a stress-free trip to Mexico for me and other like-minded entrepreneurs looking to expand into the Mexican market. Rancho Nexo managed all our accommodations and activities. They had a very thorough and well-thought-out itinerary to make the most of our time there. Rancho Nexo also provided us with translators for our time there which helped especially during the Green Tech Americas trade show in Queretaro. They did a great job in organizing, so I could focus on business rather than logistics!
On our first day in Mexico, I had the chance to meet with individuals that worked at the Canadian Embassy, as well as Luis Ernesto Gonzalez, a trade commissioner and the Program Manager of the Canadian Tech Accelerator in Mexico. We learned about what the Mexican market has to offer for business in the AgTech space and about what the Canadian Tech Accelerator can offer to businesses. All this knowledge by the experts was very informative and it helped me see how Healthy Hydroponics can match the needs of growers in a larger market such as Mexico.
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After spending the morning at the Canadian Embassy we drove 3 hours to the city of Queretaro, where the GreenTech Americas conference took place from April 27th to April 29th. Before the expo I had a chance to learn more about the other companies participating with Rancho Nexo. All these companies were looking to expand into the AgTech space in Mexico and some had very similar interests that we did here at Healthy Hydroponics. That evening we also had the opportunity to meet with a grower from Mexico that told us about the differences in the landscape that shapes Mexico’s agriculture industry. I also learned about viruses that growers struggle with in Mexico, like the Impatiens Necrotic Spot Virus. This is interesting to note because in his experience, this virus was just as detrimental to crops as Tomato Brown Rugose Fruit Virus, a persistent virus currently plaguing the world’s tomato supply chain.
From April 27th to the 29th, we spent the day at the Rancho Nexo booth at the GreenTech Americas conference and trade show. With the help of the translators thanks to Rancho Nexo, I was able to converse with growers and learn about other companies in the AgTech space in Mexico. On April 28th we spent the morning visiting a greenhouse that grows peppers, where we learned about emerging viruses and about the growing process in the greenhouse. It was interesting to see that there are lots of high-tech greenhouses in Mexico which makes it an ideal market for AgTech companies such as ourselves. This greenhouse visit was one of my favourite parts of the trip as it was so informative and taught me so much about biosecurity, biosafety, and technologies that are used to grow our food.
Big Thanks to GRAS
The whole trip was a learning experience and this trip was made possible thanks to GRAS and the Rapid Response to Business Development (RRBD) Initiative which helps startups like Healthy Hydroponics receive funding for opportunities such as this one. The outcome of this trip was to learn more about the product market fit for Healthy Hydroponics, a microbiome monitoring service for growers which offers early detection of pathogens and increases food safety. What I found was that there are growers that are interested in a service like this and we are now considering expanding into the international market–a thought I never imagined we would consider this soon!
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Tanya Irani is a bioinformatics specialist at Healthy Hydroponics
