The future will not be easy, but rather challenging. After a survey of Scope made last week at Expoagro and after dialogue with different referents of the sector, in the countryside and the agricultural industry is glimpsed A certain optimism because the economy seems to have begun a normalization process.
The availability of bank credits and temporary reduction in retentions are concrete facts on which many are supported in agriculture, although there are doubts regarding the concrete possibilities of capturing profitability in schemes that – in line – must adapt to the new rules of the game, where the financial thing was left aside and the productive becomes prominence.
Import opening
Perhaps one of the most important aspects to mention is the recovery that is expected to occur in the metalworking sector, where some companies carried out launches and investments thinking of a sales growth for this 2025.
Sergio Vera, commercial director of Case IH assured the scope that one of the most prominent aspects that lived in recent months was the normalization of imports.
According to Vera, “little by little we are putting the day with factory production and with the availability of products. Today we have an ascending curve and we can already say that we have availability in most of the products of our portfolio, not only with what was produced at the factory of Córdoba – which has also adapted to having productions with very high technology – but to have the same products that are available in the rest of the world. We do not forget that our brand is characterized by our brand. Innovation, technology and being a pioneer in many of the solutions that are later adopted over time by the rest of the competitors. ”
Investments to increase efficiency
Another of the companies of the item that has just made a Huge investment is Apache. The firm inaugurated its new industrial plant in the city of the couples, Santa Fe. With a covered area of more than 3600 m² and an investment of US $ 3.5 million, this new space will allow strengthening the production of agricultural machinery.
A part of the plant will be dedicated to the assembly of medium and low power tractors under the Apache Solis brand, in collaboration with Sonalika, the main exporter of Indian tractors. In addition, the new infrastructure will allow the manufacture of the Air proprietary sowing 99000. With this investment, the productive capacity may increase by 30% in a single shift and up to 50% with efficient management.
In dialogue with Condo, Fernando Porcel, Commercial Manager of Apache said that recent investment “is an important commitment to the industrial project that the company has. At the industrial level, we are working with an improvement of processes since 2020. We have to be more efficient and lower our costs.
The improvement of efficiency – which rural producers live daily – reached the industrial sector and many have already begun to apply improvements in their productive processes.
From the town of San Andres de Giles, the GR Group works in that same direction and managed to transfer some of the improvements in its processes to the price lists it offers to its clients.
In dialogue with scope, Gastón Ricardo, head of the GR group He said he has a team of people who understand where the company is going and that is why he managed to double the production without taking more personal, with the same people, but incorporating technology to work better.
The company took the opportunity offered by imports to improve their costs. As Ricardo explained, “there are many things that are not manufactured in Argentina, for example, agricultural roofs and we are paying a price that the truth is very high, I understand that the importer has to earn money because it does its business, but one thing is to earn money and another thing is to become a millionaire. This government allowed us to import such things and reduce the cost of one of our fertilizers in 70 thousand dollars if we compare it with 4 months ago. It is not that we stayed with the difference, but that we are giving it to the producer. ”
“I believe that Argentina is going to that side. We were wrong, to win 30, 40, 50%, and that does not exist anywhere in the world. I believe that if this continues, we will have an Argentina comparable to the rest of the world, and we will be competitive, I have no doubt,” Ricardo added.
Investments not only arrived for the metalworking sector, but also in the agricultural sector they are also the order of the day. With a strong cooperative imprint and a marked commitment to productive development, the Guillermo Lehmann cooperative opened in San Jerónimo Norte, province of Santa Fe, a modern balanced food plant for dogs and cats. Under the name Lokal, the project demanded an investment greater than US $ 6 million and represents a milestone in the diversification of cooperative activity, adding value at source and generating new job opportunities in the region.
Gonzalo Turri, executive director of the Lehmann cooperative detailed to the scope that “after 74 years in traditional agricultural businesses, we believed that it was appropriate to be able to capitalize on our entire experience in the area of animal nutrition for cattle and enhance it, take it to another business unit, diversify and think about pets”.
The highlight of this investment is that it was made with genuine resources and that arrives in a year in which many companies presented difficulties from the financial point of view. It is that the macroeconomic scenario can be auspicious, it also presents difficulties. According to Turri, “in the agriculture the margins were shrinking, the opportunities we had in the past disappeared when sometimes the credit options to fixed rates in pesos were compensated with a devaluation process or with an inflationary process that ended up liquefying the rates.
Now business will be more pure, more genuine and in those pure and genuine businesses there is a deterioration of margins that are very very important. There will have to be very efficient, very professional, very productive and the companies that are not going to have to suffer the consequences.
Source: Ambito
