A Quick Look at LATAM’s M&A Environment: Slowing Down and Selective

Stephen Pearce By Stephen Pearce|9 March 2026

Overall, the broader M&A environment (not just agriculture) in Latin America (LATAM) in 2025 showed a shift toward fewer but larger transactions. While deal volume has decreased in most sectors compared to 2024, the aggregate value of deal sizes across many sectors has been up, reflecting selective, high-impact deals.

In agriculture, we saw a modest decrease in the number of deals in the sector overall across the LATAM region. In early 2025, we observed the continuation of the slowdown from 2024. By the end of Q1 in 2025, 10 deals had been completed as compared to 12 in the same period in 2024. Also, what is telling in the data is that in 2024, there were 10 acquisitions/buyouts versus only two in 2025.

The Exception

Brazil, however, remains something of an exception with the agri-tech/agri-food system startups and innovation sector seeing funding increases in 2025 of 33% over 2024 at U.S. $160 million, as compared to U.S. $121 million in 2024.

Deal flow in Latin America has seen a modest decrease in 2025 over 2024, with deal types trending toward slightly fewer but larger, more strategic, and consolidation-type deals as opposed to a rebound to higher deal volume. We can conclude that activity is becoming increasingly concentrated.

The implication for ag investment remains relatively positive as agriculture and livestock remain central to key Latin American economies, e.g., Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina, which have overall remained resilient despite significant headwinds related to changing climate, cost challenges, and sanitary challenges.

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Quick Outlook

Overall, the agriculture/agribusiness M&A in LATAM will finish weaker in terms of deal volume than in previous peak years.

Within the agribusiness sector’s innovation-focused, adjacent segments, we see more activity, especially in Brazil, where more financing shifts toward tech and value-added and supply-chain-oriented investments away from land or commodity-heavy types of investment scenarios.

Outside of Brazil, we see no strong evidence to suggest a broad agriculture M&A upswing, largely due to some structural challenges (economics, policy, etc.), so we will likely see a continued flattening in terms of M&A activity in the short to medium term.

AWP Associates Director Stephen Pearce is recognized across a number of industries as an expert practitioner in strategic sourcing in global direct and in-direct procurement, business development strategy and supporting private equity companies in deal scouting, market roll up strategy and post acquisition M&A integration. Steve has spent more than 25 years in senior life-sciences, genetics and business development, marketing and communications roles. During his time living here in the U.S., he was also a state and federal lobbyist. For the last 15 years he has focused on transformational strategic sourcing & procurement, working capital optimization & supplier relationship management and alliance development strategies driving mutual value creation strategies and post-acquisition integration. AWP Associates was launched in 2017 and is focused on value-chain optimization and profitability improvement. AWP Associates now serves clients in all parts of the value chain from manufacturers to distribution in AgChem, animal health, pharma and other industries.

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