Plano Safra 2025/26: R$ 516 billion at higher interest

The 2025/26 Plano Safra (Brazil's annual crop plan), launched on July 1, 2025, at the Palácio do Planalto, made R$ 516.2 billion available to commercial agriculture, R$ 8 billion more than in the previous cycle. The amount was a record in nominal terms, but it came with the most expensive interest in the recent series: the main operating-credit rate rose to 14% a year, at a time when the Selic (Brazil's benchmark rate) stood at 15%. For mid-sized and small growers, the message was twofold: there was money, but it cost more.

What happened

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock, the plan set aside R$ 414.7 billion for operating costs and marketing and R$ 101.5 billion for investment, aimed at mid-sized and large producers. Rates on the operating and investment lines ranged from 8.5% to 14% a year, with a discount for those who adopt sustainable practices and keep their Rural Environmental Registry (CAR) in good standing.

The Parliamentary Agricultural Front (FPA) published, on July 4, 2025, an analysis whose title summed up the sector's criticism: the highest interest rate ever paid by rural producers under the program. According to FPA's figures, general operating credit went from 12% to 14%, Pronamp, the mid-sized producer line, from 8% to 10%, and Moderfrota, for machinery, from 8.5% to 13.5%. The group estimated that the 15% Selic imposed an additional interest cost of between R$ 54 billion and R$ 58 billion on producers.

A year later, when launching the next plan, the government itself used 2025/26 as the baseline for comparison. Agência Brasil reported that the operating-credit rate fell from 14% to 12.5% in the 2026/27 cycle, and Pronamp from 10% to 9%.

Why it matters

The Plano Safra is the country's main rural credit policy, but it does not reach everyone the same way. Subsidized-rate credit is limited, and much of the announced volume circulates at market rates, through instruments such as the Rural Product Note (CPR) and Agribusiness Credit Notes (LCA). Those with a credit file, collateral and a banking relationship get the best lines. Those without pay more or go without.

The 2025/26 cycle coincided with a wave of defaults in the countryside. Bloomberg reported in May 2025 that farmer defaults were forcing Banco do Brasil, agribusiness's largest lender, to rethink its accounts. High interest, bad weather and expensive inputs set the stage in which many people planted with money more expensive than their margins allowed.

In Bairo's view

For Bairo Leandro Gonzalez Martinez, the Plano Safra shows the size of agribusiness and, at the same time, the size of the distance between the announcement and the market pavilion. In his reading, the grower who sells every week at a wholesale supply center moves real money and, even so, has no history that a credit analyst recognizes. When interest rates rise, that grower is the first to feel it and the last to be served.

Bairo argues that harvest credit should be born from the real operation: the recorded sale, the traceable payment, proven regularity. For him, a direct connection between grower, trader and buyer, with quotes based on CEASA and Conab data, is what allows the grower to sell at the right time, and not at the moment they need money.

Where this meets the ecosystem

CEASA Bank is an agribusiness financial platform, founded by Bairo, that operates on the infrastructure of an authorized institution. It is not an authorized bank, nor does it replace the Plano Safra. Its proposal is different: to organize quotes with artificial intelligence based on public CEASA and Conab data, issue the invoice in minutes and turn every sale into history.

Harvest-linked credit appears in the platform's design as a next step, and the idea is that the recorded history helps the grower negotiate better terms with authorized institutions. The platform does not promise rates or credit approval.

Sources

• Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock, "Governo Federal lança Plano Safra 2025/2026 com R$ 516,2 bilhões para impulsionar o agro brasileiro" (Federal Government launches 2025/2026 Plano Safra with R$ 516.2 billion to boost Brazilian agribusiness), 07/01/2025: gov.br/agricultura
• Agência FPA, "Por dentro dos números do Plano Safra 2025/26: a maior taxa de juros já paga pelo produtor rural" (Inside the numbers of the 2025/26 Plano Safra: the highest interest rate ever paid by rural producers), 07/04/2025: agencia.fpagropecuaria.org.br
• Agência Brasil, "Brazil launches BRL 525.1B Crop Plan for 2026/2027", July 2026 (comparison with the 2025/26 cycle): agenciabrasil.ebc.com.br
• Bloomberg, "Farmer Defaults Force Reckoning at Banco do Brasil", 05/27/2025: bloomberg.com

Read also

• Plano Safra 2026/27: R$ 525 billion and lower interest
• Rural credit and interest: the Selic falls, defaults remain
• I lost the harvest and lost everything