Green anchor

With an increase of 13 percent in sales, the 24th edition of Agrishow had the participation of the country’s main machine manufacturers, including those of the Yellow Line

In a scenario of scorched earth in the economy, the agribusiness is a point outside the curve. With the announced super crop 2016/2017, that will harvest approximately 230 million tons of grains, equipment manufacturers are carrying out heavy investments in technology to follow the development of precision agriculture in the country turned to improve productivity and reduce pollutant emission.

This was quite clear in the 24th edition of the Agrishow (International Trade Show of Agriculture Technology in Action), carried out in May at Ribeirão Preto (SP) where an increase of 13 percent in sales, reaching 2.2 billion reais was reported. The event attracted 159 thousand visitors, 4.6 percent more than the public of the previous edition (152 thousand persons).

And such success has its reasons. According to João Carlos Marchesan, president of the Board of Directors of the Brazilian Association of Machine and Equipment (Abimaq), the Brazilian agribusiness was responsible by a surplus of more than US$ 700 billion in the trade balance during the last ten years. “Brazilian GDP decreased a lot during the last years, reaching an accumulate reduction of approximately 14 percent”, said him. “And this figure would be higher if the agribusiness did not have such good results. Agribusiness represents currently 23 percent of Brazilian GDP. In 2016, the increase in the agribusiness GDP was of 4.5 percent and this year will probably follow the same trend.”

SCALE

For equipment manufacturers, agribusiness is obviously more and more representative. According to the world president of New Holland Agriculture, Carlo Lambro, the group CNH Industrial – to whom the brand belongs – had a global income of US$ 25 billion in 2016. Sixty percent of this total was brought by agriculture industry. “In other words, about US$ 15 billion came from the agribusiness”, said the executive.

One of the strongest regions of the industry, the state of São Paulo recorded an increase of 7.4 percent in the agribusiness GDP, something around R$ 276 billion. This represents 13.8 percent of the state GDP and 18.7 percent of the agribusiness GDP, according to data from the Agribusiness Department of Fiesp (Deagro), in partnership with the Center of Advanced Studies in Applied Economy (CEPEA) of the Escola Superior de Agricultura Luiz de Queiroz (ESALQ/USP).

To encourage even better the industry, the government of São Paulo signed decrees opening credit for the programs Pró-Trator and Pró-Implementos (that allow the rural producer to finance new tractors and attachments with zero interest rate). The total was of 137 million reais, through the Fundo de Expansão do Agronegócio Paulista (FEAP). The government also established a special procedure for the return of retained ICMS for machine and attachment industry, in a total of 30 million reais. “Individuals and rural companies increased the use of these credits of ICMS to buy trucks, vans and carbodies”, said Geraldo Alckmin, governor of São Paulo, in the opening of the Agrishow.

Figures for the 2017/2018 Crop Plan are still in discussion. But according to the minister of agriculture, Blairo Maggi, they will get more than 200 billion reais, as occurred in the previous crop. “We also need interest rates that do not dampen the growth of the area”, said Maggi. “The rural producer does not support interests above 5 percent per year.”

The minister also defended the support to family agriculture, making easy the access of these producers to new technologies. In the same line, the president of the Sectorial Credit Chamber of Machines from Abimaq, Pedro Estevão, highlighted that the participation of the small producer in purchasing agriculture machines is already considerable but may be increased. “According to data from the Program of Enhancement of Familiar Agriculture (Pronaf) and considering the financing lines directed to small farmers, the sales of agricultural machines are rising to 15 to 20 percent for this niche”, highlighted him.