O Patria mirou no carbono. Acertou no avocado

In the countryside of Águas de Santa Bárbara, a municipality of approximately 7,000 residents in the interior of São Paulo, Patria Investimentos is exploring a new climate thesis for its Reforest Fund. The Patria entered the natural capital market focusing on one of the most common gambles of the climate transition: carbon. It ended up finding an opportunity less obvious – and much more flavorful: avocado.

It is in the central-west region of the state of São Paulo that the manager is investing around R$ 100 million to produce the fruit, still little known to Brazilians. The project combines agricultural production, environmental restoration, and generation of carbon credits. Patria bought two farms that together cover 1,000 hectares, and sealed a partnership with Jaguacy, one of Brazil's largest avocado producers and exporters, which will operate the farms.

Currently, Brazil produces just over 60,000 tons of Hass avocado, a variety created in California a century ago and that reigns in avocado toast and American salads. Much of the national production is aimed at export. The Reforest Fund was designed to combine different sources of capital – and different interests. On one side are investors looking at the agenda of restoration, biodiversity and decarbonization.

On the other, the more traditional capital, which needs to see return, risk and predictable revenue. "Along the design of the fund, the question was how much exposure to the carbon market we wanted," said Pedro Faria, Patria partner and co-CEO of the high growth vertical. The fund was born with the goal of mobilizing R$ 2 billion – and is already close to that.

In the first round, announced by Patria in 2025, R$ 100 million was raised with Desenvolve SP, the foment agency of the São Paulo Government; David Vélez, the founder of Nubank; Teresa and Candido Bracher, recognized environmentalists; and the Enseada, the family office of the Larragoiti. More recently, the fund attracted new investors – including Vale – and reached R$ 160 million.

For now, Patria is negotiating with international institutional investors. Another source of capital comes from catalytic instruments – which accept higher risk, lower return or longer terms. Recently, the fund was one of the seven selected in the public call for climate mitigation that will allocate R$ 4.3 billion in BNDESPar contributions.

In this regard, the vehicle can receive up to R$ 500 million. In addition, Patria will also access resources from the Climate Fund and the third Eco Invest auction. The catalytic capital resources function as a kind of safety net to attract investors. "The catalytic capital becomes a layer of protection. In this model, money that can be 'lost' is used before the investors' traditional resources," Faria said.

The logic adopted is that each investor can see a different entry point for the same asset. For a company with decarbonization and restoration goals, the project delivers environmental attributes. For a financial investor, the agricultural production and the associated revenue from credits help to compose the risk and return equation.

"At the operational level, it is an agroforestry arrangement, at the fund level, it is a multifaceted arrangement of investors entering equity positions," said the executive. It was in this design that the avocado found its space. It is estimated that the global market for the fruit moves around US$ 20 billion per year. Brazil currently occupies the seventh position among producers, but, in Faria's view, has conditions to advance quite a bit.

"When you look at the question of cost, competitiveness and access to money, there's no reason why Brazil shouldn't be among the three largest avocado producers in the world." For Patria, European and Asian markets are the focus for avocado exports. In 2025, Japan and Chile began importing the fruit from Brazil. The partnership with Jaguacy, which cultivates 1,200 hectares of avocado and serves customers like Carrefour and Pão de Açúcar, guarantees not only the operation of the farms but also access to processing infrastructure and distribution channels.

The chosen region of Águas de Santa Bárbara was no coincidence. The properties are in an area with fertile soil, adequate altitude, and water availability, but which also went through cycles of agriculture, livestock and monocultures that degraded part of the territory. The cultivation will be done in an agroforestry system, combining rows of avocado with native species that protect the fruit trees against possible damage caused by wind.

Of the nearly 1,000 hectares, it is planned to plant around 100 hectares this semester. The first harvest will come in four years. The project will also serve as a laboratory for what may come next. Patria has already identified coffee and cocoa as the next crops to be developed and sees space to take the model to other biomes. For Faria, climate change is making food production an increasingly strategic question for capital.

Global demand is growing, while more frequent climate events increase the risk of supply shocks. This combination is transforming resilient agriculture into an investment thesis: producing more, restoring degraded areas, and at the same time building food chains less vulnerable to climate change. The Patria avocado is expected to end up on tables worldwide. The carbon, for its part, is left as a credit for the planet.