Annual Report 2023

PRESIDENT'S WORDS
A CHALLENGING YEAR
Alfredo Lang
CEO of C.Vale
An extraordinarily challenging period. The year 2023 managed to overcome the level of difficulties
imposed on agribusiness in the twelve months that preceded it. After strongly affecting summer crops in
central-southern Brazil in 2022, climate once again punished rural producers and companies in the sector.
First it was the drought that damaged soy crops in Rio Grande do Sul, then it was the excess rain that
affected wheat in Rio Grande do Sul in 2023. To worsen the problems, grain prices fell, pushing profitability
to critical levels.
In the meat segment, the results also left something to be desired. Even with the reduction in costs
due to the decline in the prices of soy and corn, which serve as the basis for feed, the sharp decline in
international chicken meat prices and weak consumption in the domestic market flattened profit margins.
For C.Vale, in particular, 2023 was a year of contrasts. We faced the effects of the accident at the Palotina
grain unit that left 10 dead and another 10 injured. A tragedy in which we seek to alleviate the suffering of
family members with full support for medical, psychological and financial care.
That same year, we achieved one of the greatest achievements in C.Vale's history. We inaugurated the
soy crusher, an enterprise that fulfilled a dream of the cooperative's first members and marked C.Vale's
60th anniversary.
Even facing such adverse conditions, we managed to close 2023 with surplus. Revenue grew 7.62%,
reaching R$24.42 billion. We expected better performance, but agribusiness deals with components over
which we have no control, the climate being the most important of them.
For 2024, with grain-input exchange relations at a more balanced level, consumption a little warmer
and interest rates falling, producers and agribusiness companies should face a more promising scenario.
Difficult periods bring lessons, the main one being that we need to seek efficiency and competitiveness.
Whoever knows better how to adjust to difficulties will be more prepared to take advantage of periods of
prosperity.