Agricultural cooperatives in Rio Grande do Sul invest R$ 210 million in storage

The increase in the state's grain harvest in recent years, which has been breaking records, combined with the growth in participation in receiving agricultural production, has led agricultural cooperatives to invest heavily in expanding receiving units. In 2015, the system invested R$210 million in warehouse conservation and modernization structures.

These investments are mainly due to the projection of a new increase in the share of grain origination. In the case of soybeans, for example, the expectation is that cooperatives will increase their participation in receiving the oilseed in the 2015/2016 harvest, whereas in the previous period they received 40% of a total of 15 million tons produced in the State, the equivalent to 6 million tons according to data from the Federation of Agricultural Cooperatives of Rio Grande do Sul (FecoAgro/RS). “This space was not enough to store the volume received. With this, envisioning a greater participation in origination, the system made investments in expansion”, highlights the entity's president, Paulo Pires.

Among the investments, the director recalls that CCGL allocated amounts in excess of R$50 million to the expansion of its structures at the Termasa and Tegrasa terminals, in the port of Rio Grande, aiming to speed up export activities. Pires recalls that currently the agricultural cooperatives in Rio Grande do Sul represent more than 30% of the storage capacity in the State. “Rio Grande do Sul has space for 28 million tons and the cooperatives already have a capacity of more than 10 million tons, according to data from Conab, which is significant", he points out.

Expansions were also carried out in dairy industrial parks. The president of FecoAgro/RS cites examples such as CCGL itself, in Cruz Alta, which doubled its milk processing capacity, as well as Santa Clara, in Carlos Barbosa, Serra, which installed a new factory in the municipality of Casca, in the north of the state, to process one million liters of milk per day. Furthermore, Cooperativa Languiru invested in a new distribution center in the municipality of Teutônia, in Vale do Taquari.