Brasília – Brazilian farmers will receive, starting next Monday (2), the greatest volume of credit for sustainable farming. In the 2013 Crop Plan, announced on Thursday (28) by president Dilma Rousseff, the credit lines of the Low Carbon Agriculture Programme (ABC), which provides incentives to good practices in the country, will receive R$ 3.4 billion (US$ 1.6 billion) in funds for financing. In total, the Crop Plan will receive R$ 115.2 billion (US$ 55.4 billion).
The president said that Brazilian agriculture showed, in figures, that it is possible to align growth and environmental preservation, even if it is considered a “power” in production of food. According to her, sector production grew in volume and productivity, guaranteeing food safety in a scenario of lower deforestation.
“Currently, different from developed nations, we have 60% intact biomes, despite being the largest agricultural power in the world. We have managed to expand our agriculture by 180% and, at the same time, to grow just 32% in occupied area,” said Dilma.
The ABC programme was established in 2010 to stimulate the adoption of practices like the direct cultivation on the remains of the prior crop, which makes it unnecessary to churn the soil and reduces erosion; recovery of degraded pastures, transforming degraded land into productive areas for production of food, fibre, meats and forests; crop-livestock-forest integration, with grazing grounds, agricultural land and forests in the same area, and cultivation of commercial forests, like eucalyptus and pine.
Another practice pointed out as a target for the programme is the biological fixing of nitrogen, making it into organic material for cultures, which allows for production and improvement of soil fertility.
The line of credit to make these activities viable was launched this year and the operations for borrowing end on Friday (29). In the balance of operations up to Thursday morning, by the Bank of Brazil, over 3,000 contracts were signed with farmers all over the country, with loans of over R$ 1 billion (US$ 480 million).
“We reached a very significant figure, with distribution of credit in important agricultural areas of the country,” said the Agribusiness director at the Bank of Brazil, Clênio Severio Teribele.
According to the rules that are going to be in place up to Friday, farmers and cooperatives have a financing limit of up to R$ 1 million (US$ 480,000) per beneficiary, with interest rates of 5.5% a year and 12 years for payment. Starting on Monday, farmers may borrow another R$ 1 million, but at interest rates of 5% a year.
According to Teribele, states like São Paulo, Minas Gerais, Paraná, Rio Grande do Sul and Goiás concentrate the greatest demand for credit, justified by the greatest agricultural presence in these regions. Most of the farmers who borrowed funds in the ABC Programme are connected to large-scale farming, whose activities are based on the programme targets, with crop-livestock-forest integration and crop rotation.
Among the loans, Teribele estimates that 16% of the ABC Programmes credit was turned to recovery of areas for permanent protection (APPs) in rural properties. “Every time we implement the ABC technically in an activity, this includes a complex range of activities that contemplate from culture rotation to crop-livestock-forest and recovery of areas. It is not possible to separate what was specifically turned to APPs,” he explained.
*Translated by Mark Ament
