Expointer 2023 has an appeal for credit against drought – 09/01/2023 – Market

If Expointer’s pelegos served as a couch, as in the chronicles of Analista de Bagé, the big subject for group therapy among producers, politicians and other actors of agribusiness in Rio Grande do Sul in the 2023 edition would be the drought.

Measures to prevent and deal with the climate phenomenon —which once again hit Rio Grande do Sul in 2023— were at the heart of the agribusiness fair, which is one of the largest in the country and takes place annually in Esteio (RS).

Other highlights were the business volume above expectations and the absence of senior representatives of the federal government at the fair. Neither President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) nor Vice President Geraldo Alckmin visited the Assis Brasil Exhibition Park.

“The drought has already been the topic of much discussion in other years. But it seems to me that, in past years, all it took was to start raining for the topic to be forgotten. After three consecutive years of drought, I finally see the people here dealing with the subject as a chronic problem, which needs to be solved with political will, resources and innovation”, says the Secretary of Agriculture of Rio Grande do Sul, Giovani Feltes.

Feltes cites a study by the World Bank that estimated losses from the drought at BRL 41.2 billion between 1995 and 2019, placing Rio Grande do Sul as the state that suffered most from the problem in this period in Brazil. In response, the government of Rio Grande do Sul detailed at Expointer events a program that will grant R$ 15,000 to each small farmer requesting investment in irrigation. The goal is to increase the state’s irrigated area by up to 6,000 hectares.

The topic was also present in debates on innovation. A startup from Entre Ijuís, in the northwest of the state, called ByAgro, presented a remote monitoring system for pivot irrigation points at the fair. The system works in a network and crosses data such as soil moisture, accumulated rainfall and periods of time between irrigation of each area on a property.

The Minister of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply, Carlos Fávaro, was present at the fair on Thursday (31). In a meeting with rural producers, he promised lines of credit via BNDES (National Bank for Economic and Social Development) of up to R$ 3.5 billion for affected producers.

Fávaro was the most senior name of the federal government to appear at the Assis Brasil Exhibition Park. Privately, exhibitors said they had already expected President Lula’s absence, due to the sector’s sympathy with former President Jair Bolsonaro (PL). They expected, however, the presence of vice president Geraldo Alckmin, to whom Feltes said he had personally issued an invitation.

“We invited them and they didn’t come. We’re sorry”, says Feltes.

Another absence felt was that of the Minister of Agrarian Development and Family Agriculture, Paulo Teixeira, whom the organizers expected to attend the Pavilion of Family Agriculture. The space where cuisine and handicrafts from the interior of Rio Grande do Sul are sold is considered the fair’s “cheers” and gained even more prominence in 2023.

Before this year’s edition, the government of Rio Grande do Sul and exhibitors knew that the chances of Expointer 2023 beating the previous year’s numbers, which had amazing numbers, were remote. After one edition canceled and another reduced due to the pandemic, the 2022 fair took 742,000 people to the Esteio Exhibition Park, an increase of 78% compared to 2019 (before the pandemic).

The volume of business was R$ 7.1 billion, the highest ever handled by the fair. The numbers for the 2023 edition will be released this Sunday (3), but based on the steady weather in the first seven days of the fair and partial balance sheets from the banks present at the fair, the government of RS expects good numbers.

In 2019, R$ 6.5 billion were moved, a figure that could be reached this year.