Sustainable practices can benefit coffee farmers looking for credit

ESG practices are already guiding decisions in the agribusiness credit market. Therefore, rural producers who act in socio-environmental compliance have gained more visibility before their creditors, who have started to evaluate criteria that go beyond a good payer profile to grant financial resources. The promotion of this conversation will be led by Serasa Experian, on May 26th, within the program of the 9th Coffee Dinner & Summit, held by the Brazilian Coffee Exporters Council (Cecafé).

In addition to providing reliable information to the market and financial institutions, Serasa Experian also supports the credit journey of coffee growers, as 75% of all coffee originating in Brazil undergoes the company's risk analysis. Considering all crops, the company has already carried out socio-environmental and credit assessments of more than 3 million producers, as well as 100 thousand rural properties.

To promote these assessments, the company developed the Agro Score and the ESG Score, solutions that mitigate risks, enable scalability and generate secure partnerships. “Inserting more people into the agricultural credit market to democratize it is one of our objectives. In order to make this process viable, we combine solutions that provide the creditor with a quick and assertive risk analysis so that proposals for access to quality financial resources can, in fact, reach rural producers”, explains the head of agribusiness at Serasa Experian , Marcelo Pimenta.

The Agro Score and the ESG Score are scores that complement each other. For example, in a real scenario of more than 15 thousand coffee producers analyzed, it was identified that 89,7% of them were well positioned in both evaluations, considering a cutoff point of 600 for the Agro Score and 400 for ESG score.

Still, there are also 1,6% of producers who position themselves well in the Agro Score assessment, but not in the ESG Score. In other words, approximately 90 out of every 100 producers analyzed in that client portfolio are good payers and follow ESG practices, but there are two others that have good credit risk profiles and a bad socio-environmental profile.

Therefore, although there is a strong relationship between default and ESG risks, some producers may lose access to credit at this time when financial institutions begin to evaluate socio-environmental issues.

Coffee Dinner & Summit

Held by Cecafé, the event stands out as one of the main global forums in the coffee sector, bringing together, every two years, around a thousand people and leaders from all segments of Brazilian and global coffee farming to promote business prospecting and create commercial opportunities. , share experiences and network, bringing together agribusiness players and coffee lovers in a spacious and cozy environment.

Under the theme “Production growth: its challenges and opportunities in times of ESG”, the ninth edition of Coffee Dinner & Summit aims to promote debate and reflection regarding economic, climate, regulatory, logistical and, mainly, challenges. on the sustainable initiatives developed by Brazil and other coffee producing nations, which respect the criteria of socio-environmental governance. Interested parties can obtain more information on the website https://coffeedinner.com.br/.