Serasa: rural credit totals R$96 billion in the first half of the year

Exclusive information, released in the new edition of Serasa Experian's Agro Bulletin, revealed the scenario for granting rural and agro-industrial credit lines. According to the survey, the comparison between the first half of 2024 and the same period in 2023 registered an increase of 6,6% – an increase of R$6 billion that, in practice, increased the amount granted from R$90,5 to R$96,6 billion. Despite this, the quarterly relationship was low. In other words, analyzing the second quarter of 2024, compared to the previous year, there was a 5,6% drop in granting to the field.

It is important to highlight that this data was analyzed based on approximately 9,8 million rural property owners, those who contracted rural or agro-industrial financing distributed among the universe of individuals who authorize its use in the Positive Registry and/or who have a record of rural producer activity.

For Marcelo Pimenta, head of agribusiness at Serasa Experian, “the half-year increase at the end of the 23/24 harvest reflected the sector’s confidence in overcoming challenges, such as climate instability and volatility in commodity prices. However, the drop in the second quarter compared to the previous year and the news that there has been a drop in new financing in these first months of the 24/25 harvest may be a reflection of caution due to an increase in default rates, the number of judicial recoveries and the decline in the financial profile of investors.”

Check out the full quarterly movement with the following graph: 

Still in relation to the second quarter of 2024, regarding the granting of rural and agroindustrial credit, the survey showed in the breakdown of regions that the “Centro-Oeste Agro” stood out, with the largest amount of credit (R$ 17 billion), value per contract (R$ 509 thousand), number of contracts per CPF (1,40) and average ticket per CPF (R$ 715 thousand). On the other hand, the South region led the number of new contracts (106 thousand), as well as the number of CPFs with contracts (82 thousand). See details about the other agricultural regions on the map below:

Artificial Intelligence can boost access to credit for agribusiness

According to experts at Serasa Experian, the use of technology is a factor present in Brazilian agribusiness and is expected to continue expanding. In this sense, the adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is happening in different areas and segments of the rural chain in order to enhance services and tools that bring more performance and transparency to the sector.  

In relation to the rural credit market, it is possible to observe Serasa Experian's Agro Score which, acting as a datatech, employs the use of Machine Learning – a subfield of AI – in its tools to cross-reference and analyze data in order to predict patterns and decisions that help creditors grant credit and mitigate risks, driving the democratization of access to credit.

For example, when comparing the second quarter of 2023 with the same period in 2024, Agro Score revealed an increase in the average score of Brazilian rural producers who operate as individuals, going from 623 to 641 – which shows an improvement in the financial profiles analyzed. This evolution was possible through the use of AI, which uses advanced algorithms to identify behavioral patterns and project the financial evolution of profiles, enabling access to quality credit for everyone, from small to large producers, in addition to including those who do not have a rural registration, that is, tenants and economic groups.

“Here at Serasa Experian, we began our journey in agribusiness with the main objective of democratizing access to credit and information, precisely because of the results we achieved by using AI to evaluate scores. We built a specialist team to expand the analysis of satellite images with AI and we have pilot projects with the application of GenAI in other solutions,” he concludes.