Financing proposals intensify at Expodireto

Claudio Medaglia, from Não-Me-Toque

In two financing operations forwarded this Thursday (9) with Banrisul, in the park of the 23rd Expodireto Cotrijal, farmer Cláudio Pizzi purchased two pieces of equipment for the rural property where he lives with his family, in the municipality of Liberato Salzano. An old bank customer, he didn’t even try to find out about the lines of credit offered by other financial agents, but he returns home confident of the business format and payment capacity.

Through the National Program for Strengthening Family Agriculture (Pronaf), Pizzi negotiated a bucket for transporting grain valued at around R$80,000, with interest of 5% per year. And he also took the opportunity to buy a tractor with a price in the range of R$ 500 thousand, through Moderfrota. Rates of 12.5% ​​per year, associated with the non-charge of bank commission, which varies from 2% to 10%, made for an attractive and comfortable business condition.

On the 70-hectare property and another 180 hectares leased in the municipality, he, his wife, Creci, and their children Carlos Eduardo and Andressa Carolina produce soy, corn, wheat and chicken. Economically structured, they went shopping despite having suffered from last summer’s drought, when they harvested just over 11 bags of 60 kilos of soybeans per hectare. This year, the harvest that is about to start should yield perhaps 3,600 kilos per hectare and leave a margin of almost a ton in the same area.

“We need to look ahead and plan investments. Last year we got another piece of equipment, but we do everything with our feet on the ground. So we are sure that we will not have difficulty paying”, observes the farmer.

Pizzi is one of the 70 Banrisul clients expected to sign contracts at Expodireto, an event for which the bank allocated R$500 million to lend to producers.

“The implementation of the financing protocols has been intense in these first days of the fair. We tried to organize a schedule so that customers could come and be served properly, without rushing. We believe that the final result will be at least equal to that negotiated in the 2022 edition”, says the regional superintendent of Alto Uruguai, Eloi Pedro Angst.

Last year, Banrisul reached a total turnover of R$452.2 million at the 22nd Expodireto Cotrijal. The result was 74% higher than the 2020 edition, the last one before the emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In this edition, once again, the financing lines most sought after by producers are for the purchase of agricultural machinery, irrigation equipment, storage and investments in sustainability, says the executive manager of Agribusiness Expansion, Baltazar Cardoso. But the bank also has resources to pay for crops or even for livestock activity, with rates from 5% to 12%, depending on whether the client is included in Pronaf, the National Support Program for the Medium Rural Producer (Pronamp) or Others, via National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES). As in Banrisul, the movement on the shelves of financial agents in the park was great this Thursday. At Banco do Brasil and at Cresol Cooperativa de Crédito, customers from various municipalities in the region talked to reinforced teams to deal with requests and try to hammer out the signing of contracts.

“This is our fifth year at Expodireto. We have BRL 500 million to borrow, but we believe that the fair would support an even greater volume, perhaps up to BRL 1 billion. Our expectation is to submit between 70 and 100 loan protocols by this Friday, which would be a result very similar to last year”, reveals commercial director Ademir Baccin.

According to him, the scenario is still uncertain in relation to the course of Brazilian economic policy, with the change of government delaying the definition of interest rates and alternatives for borrowing.

“This lack of definition generates costs, due to the instability of the market. Money becomes more expensive while the situation does not crystallize. Between a liberal policy, in which the market regulates itself, and a more active State, we believe that this government will prioritize small and medium-sized producers, which is our focus. But it is important that the chain as a whole works”, analyzes Baccin.

In a realistic scenario, he believes that there will be little progress in the Safra Plan compared to last year, when resources practically ran out even before the end of 2022. And this, of course, will impact the sector’s business.

The final figures for Expodireto Cotrijal should be released late this Friday afternoon, when the fair’s coordination will make a general balance of business. For now, the highlight is the performance of sales at the Family Farming Pavilion, which from Monday to Wednesday moved R$ 1.2 million. The expectation is that the business exceeds last year’s result, when revenue was R$ 1.7 million.

Young family farmer Vinicius Juliano Pauwels, a milk producer in Lagoa dos Três Cantos, signed the first Pronaf B contract of 2023 in Rio Grande do Sul with Banco do Brasil. The Pronaf B or Rural Productive Microcredit is a line of financing for family farmers who have the Declaration of Aptitude for Pronaf (DAP) and/or the National Family Agriculture Register (CAF) with B classification of up to R$23 thousand of annual gross income, rate interest rate of 0.5% per annum and a 25% non-payment bonus with a repayment period of up to 2 years. The purpose of the financing applies to the expansion or modernization of the agricultural and non-agricultural production infrastructure of the properties.

The modality is an old agenda of Fetag-RS and the unions of natural workers and that was intensified in the negotiations of measures to combat the drought. During the morning of this Thursday (9), Vinicius signed the credit instrument in the presence of Fetag-RS and Banco do Brasil during Expodireto Cotrijal.

The Fetag-RS claim persists in the other items on the agenda that have not yet been met, but also in adapting and updating Pronaf B values ​​to serve more farmers. For the next harvest plan, rural workers’ unions have already requested that this demand be taken to the Ministry of Agrarian Development and Family Agriculture (MDA).