Case Study: University of Buenos Aires achieves better agricultural portfolio risk management with Palisade @RISK

University of Buenos Aires Analyzes Agricultural Portfolios with @RISK

The University of Buenos Aires, led by Prof. Ariadna Berger in Farm Management, needed to analyze the risks and opportunities of large-scale cash cropping in Argentina—managing extreme weather, volatile markets and limited comparable historical yield data. To address these challenges they adopted Palisade’s @RISK to incorporate a wide range of uncertainties into their portfolio-style analyses of crops, regions and cultivation practices.

Using Palisade’s @RISK inside Excel, Berger combines agronomic simulation models (≈30 years of soil/water/nutrient data) with historical weather and other random variables to generate realistic yield distributions and run portfolio simulations. The Palisade solution helps determine land allocation, leasing and climate-zone mixes for operations up to 100,000 hectares (average costs about US$125/ha), yielding better-structured portfolios, reduced risk exposure, and clearer decision-making than relying on expected returns alone.

University of Buenos Aires

Ariadna Berger

Professor