Rural credit and interest: the Selic falls, defaults remain

The Central Bank's Monetary Policy Committee (Copom) cut the Selic (Brazil's benchmark rate) from 14% to 13.75% a year on September 16, 2026, the fifth consecutive cut since March. The base rate is falling, after ten months stuck at 15%, the highest level in almost two decades. For rural credit, however, the relief is arriving slowly: the Central Bank itself warned in May that the probability of default in individuals' rural portfolios should keep rising.

What happened

The September decision was unanimous and in line with what the market expected, according to coverage published by Diário do Grande ABC. Since March 2026, when Copom began what it called a calibration cycle, the Selic has fallen 1.25 percentage points. Before that, the rate had stayed at 15% from June 2025 to March 2026.

The May 2026 Financial Stability Report shows the other side. The Central Bank identified a worsening in the risk indicators of rural and agro-industrial credit operations to individuals throughout 2024 and 2025 and wrote that the upward trend in the probability of default in these portfolios should continue in the coming periods. CNN Brasil highlighted the report's contrast: while bank credit to growers was worsening, agribusiness capital markets instruments were growing.

Serasa Experian completes the picture with judicial reorganization filings. In 2025, there were 1,990 filings in agribusiness, up 56.4% from 2024 and the highest number in the series that began in 2021. Individual rural producers made 853 of those filings.

Why it matters

Lower interest reduces the cost of new operations, but it does not erase debt taken on when the rate was at its peak. Many growers took out credit at high interest, faced bad weather and expensive inputs, and are now renegotiating. At the same time, financial institutions, after losses, tend to ask for more collateral. For those with few assets, this can mean being left out of credit precisely when it becomes cheaper.

The Selic also affects marketing. With high interest, a grower without working capital sells the harvest at the wrong time, because they need the money that day. The trader at the supply center, who pays the grower and gets paid by the retailer days later, feels the same cash squeeze.

In Bairo's view

For Bairo Leandro Gonzalez Martinez, the drop in the Selic is a window, but it does not on its own change the small grower's place in line. In his reading, those who don't know the price negotiate in the dark, those without credit sell at the wrong time, and those who sell at the wrong time are left with less to plant the next harvest. He knows from the inside what it feels like to be unable to prove what you have done: Bairo says that, broke and with many people depending on him, he learned that without a history there is no credit to start over.

Bairo argues that growers should have visible prices, money that arrives the same day and credit based on their real history. For him, a direct connection between grower, trader and buyer, with quotes based on CEASA and Conab data, is the starting point for the recorded sale to become an argument before those who lend.

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 and does not grant credit on its own. The proposal is to organize the part that comes before credit: quotes with artificial intelligence based on public CEASA and Conab data, invoices issued in minutes and the record of every sale as the financial history of whoever made it.

Harvest-linked credit and machinery financing appear in the design as next steps, to be offered with authorized institutions. The platform does not promise rates or approval.

Sources

• Central Bank of Brazil, history of interest rates (Copom of 09/16/2026): bcb.gov.br
• Diário do Grande ABC, "Copom reduz taxa Selic em 0,25 ponto porcentual, para 13,75% ao ano" (Copom cuts the Selic by 0.25 percentage point, to 13.75% a year), 09/16/2026: dgabc.com.br
• Central Bank of Brazil, Financial Stability Report, May 2026: bcb.gov.br
• CNN Brasil, "Crédito rural piora enquanto mercado de capitais do agro avança, diz BC" (Rural credit worsens while agribusiness capital markets advance, says Central Bank), 05/25/2026: cnnbrasil.com.br
• Serasa Experian, "Recuperação judicial: agro fecha 2025 com quase 2 mil solicitações" (Judicial reorganization: agribusiness closes 2025 with almost 2,000 filings), 03/09/2026: serasaexperian.com.br

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