Credit for small growers: what the reporting shows

Between 2025 and 2026, the business press recorded the same movement from different angles: rural credit in Brazil became more expensive, more selective and harder to get for those with few assets. On October 28, 2025, Bloomberg reported that Banco do Brasil, agribusiness's largest lender, was threatening to stop lending to growers who filed for judicial reorganization. Forbes Agro and Reuters, covering the 2026/27 Plano Safra (Brazil's annual crop plan), showed that the announced money grows, but access does not keep pace. In the middle of this picture are small and mid-sized growers.

What happened

The Bloomberg report interviewed Banco do Brasil's chief risk officer, Felipe Prince. According to the article, about R$ 5.4 billion in the bank's loans were not being repaid because of judicial reorganization filings by 808 growers, out of a base of about 1 million rural clients and an agribusiness portfolio of R$ 404.9 billion in June. Those who file for reorganization, the executive said, would not get credit today, tomorrow or ever again. Months earlier, in May 2025, Bloomberg had already described the wave of farmer defaults as a reckoning for the state-owned bank.

Serasa Experian's figures give the scale. In 2025, agribusiness recorded 1,990 judicial reorganization filings, up 56.4% from 2024 and the highest volume in the series that began in 2021. Individual rural producers made 853 filings, and companies 753. Mato Grosso led, with 332.

On June 30, 2026, covering the 2026/27 Plano Safra, Reuters highlighted the R$ 525.1 billion for mid-sized and large producers and the drop in the operating-credit rate. On the same date, Forbes Agro, in a piece by Fábio Moitinho and Vera Ondei, noted that about 37% of the announced total comes from CPRs and LCAs, at market rates, and that only 4% of soybean growers in Mato Grosso accessed operating-credit funds in the previous harvest.

Why it matters

The reports describe a self-reinforcing cycle. High interest, bad weather and expensive inputs lead to default; default leads banks to ask for more collateral; the collateral requirement pushes away those with fewer assets; and those left without credit sell the harvest at the wrong time or turn to more expensive sources. The big players have ways out, such as capital markets and foreign credit. Small growers rarely do.

There is also a point of language. Judicial reorganization is a legal instrument, and the absolute numbers are growing, but Serasa Experian itself observed in 2025 that the filings affect a small slice of the rural credit universe. The correct portrait is not of a broken countryside, but of a system that punishes those who cannot prove their own ability to pay.

In Bairo's view

For Bairo Leandro Gonzalez Martinez, these reports describe in numbers what he saw up close at the wholesale supply centers: people who feed entire cities and remain invisible to the financial system. In his reading, the grower who delivers every week moves more than many small businesses and, even so, has no history that a credit analyst recognizes.

Bairo says that when he went to the banks with the idea of a platform for this public, he was told no, and he decided to build it anyway. He advocates credit based on real history, not only on property deeds. For him, this starts with a direct connection between grower, trader and buyer, with quotes based on CEASA and Conab data, and with every sale recorded in a way any institution can verify.

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 replace official rural credit. The proposal is to tackle the stage before credit: giving growers visible prices, fast invoicing and a history of their own, built from the real operation.

In the ecosystem's design, every sale becomes a record on BTZ Chain, the record network with proof of authenticity, and harvest-linked credit appears as a next step, with authorized institutions. These are proposals under construction, with no promise of rates or approval.

Sources

• Bloomberg, "Top Bank to Halt Credit for Brazilian Farmers Seeking Bankruptcy", 10/28/2025: bloomberg.com
• Bloomberg, "Farmer Defaults Force Reckoning at Banco do Brasil", 05/27/2025: bloomberg.com
• Reuters (via TradingView), "Brazil's 2026/27 Safra Plan expands farm credit to $101.5 billion for medium, large producers", 06/30/2026: tradingview.com
• Forbes Agro, "Depois do anúncio: como o Plano Safra 2026/27 deve mexer com o mercado" (After the announcement: how the 2026/27 Plano Safra should move the market), 06/30/2026: forbes.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
• Serasa Experian, "Recuperação judicial cresce no agro em primeiro trimestre de 2025, o que ainda afeta fatia pequena dentro do universo de crédito rural" (Judicial reorganization grows in agribusiness in the first quarter of 2025, still affecting a small slice of the rural credit universe), 2025: serasaexperian.com.br

Read also

• Rural credit and interest: the Selic falls, defaults remain
• Plano Safra 2026/27: R$ 525 billion and lower interest
• How CEASA Bank was born
• CEASA Bank: what it is and why it matters