Proagro Commission has a goal of judging 1.400 appeals by July

The Special Appeals Commission (CER) of the Agricultural Activity Guarantee Program (Proagro) intends to judge 1.400 appeals from rural producers by July 2020. The appeals are in Sisprocer – CER's appeal adjudication system. 

The action is a continuation of the first phase of the task force, established in February 2019, which made it possible to close physical processes at CER with the analysis and judgment of 2.049 cases, a number 95% higher than in 2018. Since last year , the process began to be digitized.

To achieve this year's objectives, biweekly meetings will be held to judge 150 appeals per meeting. The first will take place on February 11th and 12th. Additionally, teleworking will come into operation in the coming months (when employees will analyze resources via teleworking), which will allow an increase in the number of resources analyzed by the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply (Mapa) and consequently greater agility at trial.

For the director of Mapa's Risk Management Department, Pedro Loyola, the definitive implementation of the Sisprocer judgment system, which took place at the end of 2019, made teleworking possible for the analysis of resources. This year, the objective is to reduce the queue of processes awaiting analysis and judgment to enable phase 3 of the task force in 2021, when the entire analysis and judgment process will become virtual, reducing the need for in-person meetings.

This system will allow the participation of representatives of producers and financial institutions with the presentation of technical defense in the system itself. All of these measures are being adopted to provide speed throughout the entire process at CER, aiming to deliver to producers a result of the trial with quality, safety and in a shorter period of time.

How does CER work?

Proagro allows small and medium-sized producers whose harvest of various crops was damaged by natural phenomena, such as floods or droughts, to be released from having to settle their rural credit operations for funding with the financial institution, in the manner established by the National Monetary Council. .

If any event occurs that causes a decrease or lack of revenue for the enterprise included in Proagro and the financial agent does not accept the request for payment of losses, the farmer who does not agree with the decision has up to 30 days to present an appeal to the Special Appeals Commission, together with to the financial agent, starting from the date on which the beneficiary becomes aware of the bank or credit union's decision.

The commission evaluates each case based on documents, such as invoices, technical analyzes and expert reports, and administratively judges the divergence between the producer and the financial institution. After the first evaluation, which is carried out by Mapa technicians, the appeals are judged by a panel composed of representatives from the Ministry, the Central Bank of Brazil and the Ministry of Economy, with the results of the decisions published in Section 1 of the Official Gazette of the Union ( DOU).

Representatives of rural producers, through their confederations, federations, technical assistance, research and also the financial agents involved in Proagro operations, can participate in the judgment meetings to assist in the CER's decisions.

proagro

Administered by the Central Bank of Brazil, the program was instituted through Law 5.969, of December 11, 1973, and aims to exempt rural producers from financial obligations related to credit operations, the settlement of which is made difficult by the occurrence of natural phenomena, pests and diseases that affect crops.

The objective of the program is to guarantee the amortization or settlement of agricultural financing costs, in the event of an accident occurring on the farm, in proportion to the losses determined and to allow the receipt of resources proven to be invested by the producer in the field.