Upon completing 60 years, Camnpal cooperative maintains investments for new rice mill

In the year in which it completes six decades of activity, Cooperativa Agrícola Mista Nova Palma (Camnpal) is committed to continuing its investments initiated last year. According to the president of the cooperative, Claudimir Piccin, at least R$ 50 million are being contributed by Camnpal between the construction of a new rice mill in the municipality of Dona Francisca, started last year and scheduled to open in 2024, and the completion of a new facility in Novo Cabrais, which should be inaugurated by July.
“We have many plans for future works and expansion, but as always, we carry out our actions with firm, safe steps and observing what is happening”, explains the president.
With works starting in 2022, the new factory should come into full operation in the second half of 2024, and will increase the processing and industrialization capacity of Bella Dica rice, Camnpal’s own brand, from 70,000 to 300,000 bales of 30 kilos per month. The work, which includes, in addition to infrastructure and silos, the purchase of new machinery, is budgeted at BRL 70.4 million, and BRL 20 million has already been invested in 2022.
“It’s an investment entirely made with the cooperative’s own resources. We bought the machinery and are now paying with great responsibility and meeting the deadlines for the project, which was approved last year by Fundopem”, explains Piccin.
The production of rice, along with beans, are the main products of Camnpal’s agribusiness sector, which currently accounts for 20% of the cooperative’s revenues. Camnpal closed 2022 with BRL 1.5 billion billed, and a result of BRL 58 million – almost BRL 20 million distributed to members.
Most of Camnpal’s income comes from receiving and distributing grain. And part of the investments, also continuing the project started in 2022, is intended for a support structure for producers in the Novo Cabrais region. R$ 2.5 million are invested this year, half of the total invested, to guarantee the opening, in two months, of a structure for the storage of inputs, agricultural defensives and the opening of an agrocenter in Novo Cabrais. In this municipality, the cooperative already keeps receiving soy.
With 17 units in nine municipalities in the region, especially in Quarta Colônia, the cooperative’s attention is inevitably focused on soy. In 2021, the harvest resulted in 6.5 million bags. In the following year, there were 3.6 million bags, a reduction of 45%. With a new drought, the projection is again for a volume around half of what was reached in 2021.
“Diversification is an important factor for the stability of the cooperative. In the last year, wheat had a result above expectations and rice maintained normal indices. Together with our agribusiness sector, they ended up balancing our results. Now, we are back in the expectation”, points out the president.