La Compañía Brasileña de Cooperativas Agrícolas (CCAB) ha lanzado Cropline, una plataforma de acceso para agricultores no accionistas, ampliando sus operaciones desde del centro-oeste de Brasil a los estados del sur y sureste del país.
The company evolved from a small group of cooperatives from the state of Bahia, Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul – which joined forces to import agricultural pesticides, at a time when the market faced supply crises, to a market company in which shareholders are farmers’ cooperatives, and has been gaining muscle since the entry of French group InVivo in 2016.
“Both InVivo, which is also controlled by farmers’ cooperatives, and the other shareholders understand that it is possible to grow in an increasingly concentrated market, such as that of pesticides, without losing the focus of representativeness. Today we have 22 cooperatives as shareholders, which have 55,000 rural producers under their umbrella,” says CEO Jones Yasuda. According to him, CCAB’s goal is not to be a supplier of generic or biological chemical defenses, but a company that, as farmers, talks with its peers and understands its demands “to offer products and technologies that actually meet the needs of their needs, “he says.
With Cropline, the CCAB, which prioritized the cultivation of cerrado – soybean corn and cotton – in its 11 years of existence, now also talks with producers of vegetables, fruits, sugar cane and beans, among others. “We are opening the dialogue with farmers in the South and Southeast, through the various private traditional cooperatives and distributors, because our goal is to understand what this producer needs. Trabajan en otras bases, con módulos agrícolas menores, pero tienen gran relevancia en la producción nacional de alimentos. We set up a team of experienced technicians strategically positioned in these regions,” Yasuda says. El liderazgo en la CCAB, sin embargo, sigue siendo el accionista, principalmente los agricultores del cerrado, según el director general.
La entrada de InVivo, además de ser un motor de esta expansión, favorece el intercambio de experiencias con Francia, que ha sido incisiva en el desarrollo de innovaciones para favorecer una agricultura más productiva y sostenible. “There are initiatives within InVivo itself that can be replicated here, and we are doing a deep analysis to find out what is feasible. Son oportunidades en el campo del control biológico, la agricultura digital y la tecnología alimentaria, que apuntan tanto a la protección sostenible de los cultivos como a la reducción de residuos y al aumento de la vida útil de los productos agrícolas, desde el cultivo hasta la estantería. The strategy is to provide multiple solutions for the farmer, such as the provision of traditional chemical pesticides and organic products, as well as digital agriculture, seeds, business model, among other tools,” he explains.
Según Jones Yasuda, todas las acciones de CCAB tienen como guía la responsabilidad de Brasil de ser el gran proveedor de alimentos del mundo, en un futuro próximo. Cita cifras publicadas por el Departamento de Agricultura de EE. UU. (USDA) de que, en 10 años, el país suministrará 41% de la demanda mundial adicional de alimentos.” As farmers we are, we work for this and we understand that this reality also has to guide the Brazilian agricultural policy. We are not an association of farmers, but we have representation to alert governments to urgent changes that need to happen to ensure food security in the country and in much of the planet,” concluye.