Rezende Barbosa leads sugarcane supply and aims at growing in services
Valor Econômico
After selling its sugar and alcohol plants and all the "post-productive" operations to Cosan, in 2009, the Rezende Barbosa holding not only became the largest individual shareholder of the sugar and alcohol giant it also became the most important supplier of sugarcane for the plants of the country. With a production concentrated in disputed and increasingly less available areas of the State of São Paulo, the group already produces 10 million tons of sugarcane per harvest, 40% of which in its own land. And that is not all. Besides planning to grow in line with the expansion of its partner Cosan, the holding has just created a company specialized in offering what it believes to have best: expertise in the planting of sugarcane and in the activity of cutting, loading and transportation of the raw material in the market, known as "CLT".
NovAmérica Serviços, as the new company was named, will officially begin operating the next harvest (2011/12). But this season, in the end, it already rendered services to a few clients, among which Equipav, currently one of the four plants of the Indian Shree Renukano Brasil, and Cocal Energy, of São Paulo. The difference of such arm as regards the current Nova América Agrícola is that the focus of the new company will be the rendering of sugarcane planting services and "CLT", while that of the former is the supply of the sugarcane produced by the group to the plants - more specifically to the units of Cosan, in which the Rezende Barbosa holding stayed a 10% interest.
Before transferring the "post-productive" assets to Cosan, the group was among the largest processors of raw material, with four sugar and alcohol plants and crushing capacity of 8 million to 9 million tons of sugarcane per harvest. "We've grown a lot and we were in many links in the chain, from the planting and 'CLT' to the sugar distribution, export and port operation", says Rezende Barbosa. Besides sugar and alcohol, the holding has been working with citrus for 20 years, a business currently gathered in NovAmérica Citros, which produces 3.5 million boxes of oranges per harvest. The company also produces orange juice in its unit of Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, in São Paulo. The group also produces grain and raises cattle on farms outside the State. "In the 1970s, we entered in Paraguay and in Mato Grosso do Sul; eight years ago, we landed in Bolivia", says Rezende Barbosa. Together, all the farms of the group amount to 200 thousand hectares, inside Brazil and abroad.
Rezende does not intend to explore new areas of sugarcane, a culture he evaluates is of complex cultivation and "CLT". "The sugarcane does not 'travels' like the soybeans. The logistics is different and other varieties better adapted to the equatorial weather still have to be developed", says Rezende on the regions further North in the country. He believes that among all transformations that have occurred in the sugar and alcohol segment in recent years, the most predominant dilemma will be the future of the management of the supply of sugarcane. "The key to competitiveness is in the field, that is, in the production of sugarcane. Besides, there is also the logistics issue that is fairly attached to the land where it is processed", says Rezende Barbosa.