Sicredi’s commitment to the sustainability agenda is not new. The cooperative has over 120 years of history and, despite being created to address financial demands, has established itself as a reference in supporting projects that promote sustainable development in Brazil.
Today, Sicredi is the second-largest financing institution for rural credit in Brazil and believes that agribusiness can transform the world for the better. With the goal of supporting small farmers in increasing the value of their products and improving their working conditions, Sicredi has developed a multidisciplinary plan divided into three stages, which we explain below.
Sicredi’s Methodology to Support Small Farmers
The first stage, which is connected to the cooperative’s DNA, involves actions for the development of local communities and the promotion of green finance. In practice, it means offering favorable conditions for small producers to invest in materials, systems, and equipment that enhance their crops, always prioritizing sustainable production.
Extremely strategic, the second stage involves the use of artificial intelligence and geospatial data to ensure that the supported projects comply with the legal requirements for credit access.
Property scans are conducted using the Rural Environmental Registry (CAR, in portuguese) to understand the needs of the members of the cooperative and verify compliance with legal requirements and Sicredi’s quality standards.
In the third stage, sustainability becomes even more prominent. The idea is to map areas to understand which of them have surplus legal reserves or degraded preservation areas.
If the producer operates in areas in accordance with preservation norms, incentives are provided to help maintain them. If areas requiring recovery are identified, financial assistance is directed toward that goal.
Multidisciplinary Team and Technology
In summary, all these stages are developed by a multidisciplinary team of professionals that specialize in geospatial intelligence, including geographers, agronomists, computer scientists, among others.
This team supports the validation and analysis of geospatial data from rural environmental registries and areas of environmental relevance. These databases then become part of the cooperative’s credit approval system.
It’s clear how important and prevalent technology is in all these processes. This is because “Sicredi invests in new technologies for the development of sustainable practices that support its members,” says Carla Moreira Melo, Geo Data Analyst at Sicredi.
Additionally, Sicredi is part of the AgTech Garage hub, which seeks technological innovation in sustainable activities applied to the reality of Sicredi’s members. “We also rely on external consultants to identify the sustainability score of the supported enterprises,” adds Carla.
The Environmental Issue Above All Else
Apart from making communities more environmentally responsible, the initiative’s goal is also to meet the minimum requirements of the Brazilian Forest Code – a legal framework that establishes rules for the use and preservation of forests and other forms of vegetation in Brazil. Thus, based on the Rural Environmental Registry, validated by Sicar (acronym in Portuguese for National Rural Environmental Registry System), members can obtain benefits in credit concessions, which encourages them to seek environmental compliance.
It is noteworthy that by complying with the Brazilian Forest Code, the rural producer is preserving native forests and their carbon stocks, aside from contributing to a more balanced ecosystem for biodiversity maintenance.
When degraded areas are identified, Sicredi supports recovery through credit lines with funding from the National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES, in Portuguese). In this regard, the cooperative is working to develop new products to support the restoration of degraded areas that have been subject to environmental embargoes.
