CNA holds seminar on fruit exports

The Brazilian Agriculture and Livestock Confederation (CNA) promoted, on Tuesday (4), the seminar “Exporting Fruits in the Current Context”. The training was carried out at the Senar Fruit Growing Center of Excellence, in Juazeiro (BA).

The Trade Promotion coordinator of the CNA International Relations Directorate, Rodrigo da Matta, moderated the seminar. At the opening, he highlighted the importance of diversifying the export agenda and presented Agro.BR, an internationalization program for small and medium-sized rural companies to work in foreign markets.

Agro.BR is an initiative developed in partnership with the Brazilian Export and Investment Promotion Agency (Apex-Brasil) to increase the participation of small and medium-sized producers in international trade and diversify the export list of Brazilian agricultural products.

Rodrigo da Matta showed all the stages of Agro.BR and the tools used to make Brazilian food reach other countries. “We count on the Landing Program, the Business Roundtables, participation in international fairs and events, consortiums and exporting cooperatives,” he said.

He also presented recent cases of rural producers who started exporting with support from the program. Agro.BR has state regional offices specialized in foreign trade in Bahia, Ceará, Minas Gerais, Mato Grosso do Sul, Pará, Rio Grande do Sul and São Paulo. It also has the support of CNA's international offices, located in Dubai, Singapore and Shanghai.

Also participating in the opening were the vice-president of the Federation of Agriculture and Livestock of the State of Bahia (Faeb), Guilherme Moura, and the president of the Union of Rural Producers of Petrolina (PE), Jailson Lira, representing the Federation of Agriculture of the state of Bahia. Pernambuco (Faepe).

Asian Countries - The CEO of the Agro.BR Office in Dubai, Rafael Gratão, gave a talk on the new markets for Brazilian fruit growing with a focus on Asia and presented an overview of the market, opportunities, threats and main competitors in the United Arab Emirates.

“The Emirates import around 80% of the food they consume. Fruits are in third place among the most imported foods for consumption, with mango, papaya, grapes, melon and watermelon being the most consumed fruits. Appearance, quality and price are the main purchasing criteria”, highlights Gratão. According to him, in 2022 Brazil exported around US$5,6 million to the United Arab Emirates.

Sabor da Fruta's agronomist, Júnior Silveira, spoke about the markets of China and South Korea, potential importers of fruit from Brazil. In his presentation, he said that Brazil is the third largest fruit producer in the world, but the 24th country in terms of export volume.

When presenting the Asian markets, Júnior Silveira showed that South Korea has been importing Brazilian mangos since 2017 and is finalizing negotiations to open its market to the grape. China has been importing Brazilian melons since 2019 and has just opened a market for Brazilian grapes. He also said that there is free trade in fruit after the free trade agreement with Mercosur.

Logistics

In the second block of the seminar, the logistics issue for exports was addressed. The panel was moderated by the executive director of Abrafrutas, Eduardo Costa Brandão. The commercial coordinator of Tecon Salvador & Centro Logístico Salvador, Cléo Maryan, presented the maritime logistics scenario before and during the pandemic and the trends for current international transport. The representative of the company World Logistics Passport (WLP), Laura Barbosa, spoke about logistics for the Middle East.

Certification

The Exporting Fruits in the Current Context seminar also addressed the issue of obtaining international certificates. The Sebrae manager in Juazeiro (BA), Carlos Cinteiro, presented support tools for obtaining a certificate.

He stated that he will be working in partnership with Agro.BR to offer Sebraetec solutions to rural producers who are in the internationalization process. According to him, Sebraetec is in all federative units in Brazil and aims to transfer innovation and technology so that small business owners have access to services.

The internationalization project manager at the Arab-Brazilian Chamber of Commerce, Fernanda Dantas, showed participants the importance of Halal certification for opening up markets in Arab countries. According to her, the Islamic market has been growing in terms of product diversification, volume and revenue.

Fernanda Dantas also explained that the Halal concept is no longer concentrated in one geographic region, religion or nation because it puts human beings, the environment and public health first.

The seminar was supported by Faeb, Faepe and Sebrae.