Agro MP promotes more credit alternatives for rural producers

Provisional Measure 897/2019 approved in December 2019 brought a series of changes linked to credit and debt financing for rural producers. Effective until March 10, 2020, the MP's main innovation is the creation of the Fraternal Guarantee Fund (FAF), which allows the association of two to ten producers to create a financial reserve that can be offered as a guarantee to the network. bank to obtain agricultural credit.

As explained by lawyer Otávio Carvalho, from the firm Dosso Toledo Advogados, in Ribeirão Preto, this fund has the participation of rural producers themselves, individuals or legal entities, financial institutions and interested third parties and its “objective is to generate guarantees for credit operations , thus making it easier for the producer to obtain financing, without compromising the rural property in a higher percentage than the credit requested”.

In the Fraternal Guarantee Fund, members grant mutual guarantees, through the provision of guarantees for allocated assets, generally properties that are associated with the ability to pay a certain debt. It must be borne in mind that the FAF will be a subsidiary guarantee, that is, the creditor must initially exhaust the debtor's individual sources, real or personal, and, if insufficient, will start using the resources of this fund.

In addition, it is now possible to divide the property into shares of amounts equivalent to the loan. “This way, rural producers will not need to compromise their entire property to obtain just one financing, so that there may still be fractions of their land capable of guaranteeing new credit operations”, says Otávio.

Another highlight is the possibility of equalizing interest rates by all financial institutions that operate with rural credit. “With equalization, which is when the government covers the difference between the interest rate charged in the financial market and the rate actually paid by the producer, competitiveness between financial agents will be stimulated and rural producers will have more affordable rates”, comments the attorney.

The provisional measure also brought changes to the Rural Product Certificate (CPR), which can now be issued with a clause providing for it to be referenced in foreign currency, such as the dollar, for example, in addition to the obligation to register such titles for them to be legally effective. . “The objective of the change is to offer more contracting flexibility and legal security in the credit market to serve rural producers. In general terms, it increases the legal security of such titles, in order to stimulate their issuance and commercialization, thus promoting new fronts of rural financing, including the entry of foreign investments, not dependent on public authorities”, concludes Otávio.