Do the Right Thing: How Produzindo Certo Turns Good Farm Practices into Ground Truth
#9 BAR Stars
From fieldwork to ESG dashboards, this Brazilian agtech is making sustainability measurable and proving that verified impact can be good business.
Ground Truth
In modern agribusiness, doing the right thing is no longer enough, you also have to prove it. Markets, regulators, and consumers now demand hard evidence of sustainable production, from carbon footprints to forest cover. For rural producers, that means turning good intentions into verifiable data. For corporations, it means showing that their supply chains are as responsible as their brand promises. The reward? Access to premium markets, green finance, and payments for environmental services that recognize real impact.
That shift, from good intentions to proof, is where Produzindo Certo thrives. Born from a field NGO in Brazil’s agricultural frontier, the company has spent nearly two decades helping farmers and global buyers speak the same sustainability language. Its “Producing Right” platform combines on-the-ground expertise with digital traceability, transforming ESG compliance from a costly burden into a source of value and trust.
Today, Produzindo Certo monitors 8.6 million hectares, connects over 10,700 farms, and helps preserve 3.6 million hectares of native vegetation. But its real achievement lies in something harder to quantify: credibility. In a world where sustainability claims are easy to make but hard to prove, Produzindo Certo has made doing the right thing measurable and verifiable.
In the Weeds
What sets Produzindo Certo apart isn’t just what it measures, but how close it gets to the ground. The company’s network of agronomists collects social, environmental, and productive indicators directly from farms using a custom mobile app. Each photo, checklist, and GPS point feeds into the Producing Right Platform, which turns those observations into ESG scores, risk maps, and tailored improvement plans.
For clients like Unilever, Nestlé, Bayer, and Louis Dreyfus Company, that means unprecedented traceability, real-time insight into where their products come from and how responsibly they’re made. For producers, it’s a mirror and a map: a way to see their own performance, track progress, and gain access to buyers, certifications, and green credit.
By keeping one foot in the field and the other in the cloud, Produzindo Certo translates the messy reality of agriculture into measurable impact, and turns local actions into global confidence.
Silver Lining
At Produzindo Certo, sustainability isn’t just something to prove, it’s something to profit from. Through initiatives like Reg.IA, Latin America’s first Regenerative Agriculture Consortium, and Bov.IS, a collaborative for low-carbon livestock, the company is showing that verified impact can generate real economic returns.
Both programs unite corporates, producers, and investors under shared sustainability protocols. Farmers who meet regenerative or low-emission targets can access financial bonuses, green credit lines, and premium markets. Each pasture restored, each emission avoided, becomes a measurable asset, one that improves both the farmer’s balance sheet and the buyer’s ESG score.
The model works because it aligns incentives. For companies, verification turns sustainability from a cost into a competitive advantage. For producers, it transforms doing the right thing into lasting value.
Rooted in Truth
After nearly two decades in the field, Produzindo Certo has built one of Latin America’s richest ESG datasets—8.6 million hectares georeferenced, spanning thousands of producers and years of historical context. On each farm, the company maps more than 1,700 environmental, social, and productive data points, combining field verification with satellite imagery to create a living digital record of sustainability performance.
This granular view gives Produzindo Certo an unmatched ability to encourage and measure change, and to monetize it. The company is now extending beyond traceability into green finance origination, ESG-linked credit trading, and impact measurement tools for financial institutions. Only a small fraction of its 10,000 farms currently participate in sustainability-linked programs, leaving enormous room for growth as verified data becomes the new entry ticket to finance and markets.
It’s a rare kind of moat, one built not just on technology, but on trust. Each data point represents a visit made, a conversation held, a relationship earned. That human foundation turns Produzindo Certo’s information advantage into something far harder to copy: credibility rooted in the real world.
The Right Team
Behind Produzindo Certo are Aline and Charton Locks, a pair of environmental engineers who turned a grassroots mission into a regional movement. Their journey began at Aliança da Terra, the pioneering NGO that first mapped Brazil’s agricultural frontier through a socio-environmental lens. Years spent walking farms, talking with producers, and navigating the space between conservation and production gave them a perspective few others had, and a reputation for integrity that now anchors the company’s growth.
Together with CFO Thiago Brasil and CTO Leonardo Pinheiro, they’ve built a business that’s as data-driven as it is people-centered. Produzindo Certo’s next chapter lies in scaling its platform across Latin America and deepening its role in sustainable finance, making verified ESG performance a bridge to capital, not a checkbox on a report.
In a sector crowded with promises, they’ve built something far more durable: proof. And in doing so, they’ve shown that producing the right way isn’t just possible, it’s profitable, measurable, and here to stay.
Thanks for reading.
KFG
Produzindo Certo is a Yield Lab Latam portfolio company. Please reach out if you’re interested in connecting with the company or if you would like to learn more about how to invest in high-potential agrifood and climate tech startups in Latin America.
Kieran Finbar Gartlan is an Irish native with over 30 years experience living and working in Brazil. He is Managing Partner at The Yield Lab Latam, a leading venture capital firm investing in Agrifood and Climate Tech startups in Latin America.