Cargill criticizes trade war and predicts new contributions in Brazil

The American Cargill, the world's largest agribusiness, keeps lit the alarm because of the trade war between the United States and China, says wait for "pragmatism" in the Government's foreign policy of Jair Bolsonaro and confirms interest in expanding investments in Brazil, especially in logistics. The value, the Vice President of Corporate Affairs of the multinational, Devry Boughner Vorwerk, considered Cargill businesses are "ok", but stated that the "time is not good" because of the difficulties of a fractured geopolitical environment. "When relations between the US and China are not good, we are concerned with the State of the industry [Agriculture] as a whole," she said. At the World Economic Forum in Davos, David MacLennan, CEO of Cargill, was incisive: "A trade war has been very detrimental to the agricultural economy of the United States," he said. "The longer it persists, the worse it is," said Reuters. The Cargill hope is that in 2019 1 agreement can be concluded between Washington and Beijing. But Devry also realized in Davos signals from other movements. The Executive said that the European Union, for example, has been very active in the commercial area "and is leading in trade" from a series of market-opening negotiations. Meanwhile, she said, Brazilian exports of soybeans will continue benefiting from the sino-American conflict. "The U.S. missed the window to sell soybeans to China, and that window has opened for Brazil," he recalled. "Definitely, Brazil is gaining. The U.S. lost the season, none of the sales [significant recent] went to China and there are a lot of things stored. " In this context, Cargill keeps the pace of investments in Brazil, where it has 23 factories, six port terminals and about 10000 employees. The second largest exporter of soybeans in the country last year, behind the Bunge, the company grossed R $35 billion in the Brazilian market in fiscal year 2017/18, and obtained net profits of R $593 million. The company's global sales for the year totaled $ $114.7 billion. According to Devry, for the past seven years, Cargill invested R $4.6 billion in Brazil. Expects the pectin factory (texturizante agent made from citrus fruits) located in Bebedouro, in São Paulo, start trading in 2021, and awaits the approval of environmental agencies to play forward your proposal to build a private terminal in Abaetetuba, Pará. The company expects the terminal to start operating between 2022 and 2025, in order to further strengthen the marketing of their products by the North. "We are also looking at investment in railway projects and we hope that some questions in the area of infrastructure can be resolved, as well as the price of road freight," said the Executive. DeVry Boughner Vorwerk points "great concern" with the price of shipping. For Cargill, the table "could harm our ability to succeed and affect Brazil's ability to be competitive in foreign markets. How the top executives of the company in Brazil, she also considers the pegging unconstitutional. After hearing the President's speech in Davos Jair Bolsonaro and participated in meeting with the economy Minister, Paulo Guedes, the Executive considers that Government plans are consistent. "What I heard was that the new Government wants to be active in the trade, wants to be open to investments. That makes me optimistic and our business should encourage the Government to continue to move forward in this direction, "he added. "Frankly, Brazil has a comparative advantage that is still under-utilized. The Brazil is a power ". Asked, on the other hand, about the anti-globalista speech by the diplomacy and on the change of brazilian Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, which may irritate Muslim partners, Vice President of Cargill says that the contradictions don't surprised, because that also happened in other parts of the world. In the end, she said, "what we hope is pragmatism." At the World Economic Forum, one of the topics discussed were the new diets to reduce the consumption of animal protein. An eye on the trend, Cargill holds your traditional production, but search for "all kinds of alternatives." To Devry, seafood consumption, for example, will grow quite as well as the other types of proteins, including insects. The Executive also pointed out that Cargill is still investing heavily in digitization and innovation. An example is the project that uses cell culture technology to grow beef and live animal tissues in stainless steel tanks. In another project, the company seeks to reduce livestock emissions. In Canada, the company works on certification of sustainable meat. And there is plans for traceability of the entire cocoa supply chain. DeVry see disruptions in trading companies because of the way scanning we need. This has led to Cargill to join their rivals-the ADM and Bunge, American French Louis Dreyfus Company and Cofco Chinese-in joint venture Beat (Bring Efficiency into Automated Trading), created to standardize and digitize transport agricultural transactions Global.