The company expertise and structure, guaranteed minimum income, and the creation of an operation network for the product are among the benefits offered
The Paraná Wood Group (GPW) is always seeking rural partners, whether in forestry, farming or cattle raising areas. The group currently has eight partnerships in the region of São Jerônimo da Serra, in the north of the Paraná state, but is expanding. According to GPW director, João Luiz Garcia de Faria, the idea is to have the regional productive sector growth with greater speed. “Joining two companies as a partnership provides the scope for the small producer, mainly those without a great structure in the forestry area, and therefore, they do not need to start from scratch. The partnership allows the creation of an operation network to produce more and better, which is what the modern world is doing nowadays. You don’t have to do everything. You only need to be good in what you do”, he explains.
According to Faria, the great advantage is in expanding the use of timber and increasing the added value of the raw material in the region. “It favors the farmer who has older wood and does not know how to sell it, the farmer who plants pine wood and does not know where to send it. By bringing in a company such as ours, with all its expertise, infrastructure and deep knowledge of the area to work as a partner, they can grow together with us”, he declares.
According to Douglas Mendes, manager at Paraná Wood Florestal and Paraná Wood Indústria Madeireira, in charge of the negotiation of partnership agreements, there are several types of agreements that can be made. Among them, the leasing of land (40% of the results for the farmer); the renting of land, which can be made on a monthly, yearly, or forest cycle (7 year) basis, depending on the negotiation; the harvesting and trading of trees; and consultancy services, where the company is hired for planting, maintenance, and harvesting to be paid with the result. “All those options are for producers with land in a 70-km radius from São Jerônimo da Serra, so that distance does not have an impact on costs”, he explains.
And for those who do not own land but still want to invest in forests, there is the option of forest quotas. “The person decides how much he/she wants to invest, which can be anything from 10% to 100% of a forest, with equivalent percentage of the results”, Mendes explains. This type of partnership is for anyone in any place in the world, and, according to João Faria, it has a better profitability than the financial market.
In all types of partnerships, GPW has legally binding agreements and guarantees a minimum yield of 420 tons of wood per hectare. In addition, Paraná Wood Indústria Madeireira purchases the entire production. “In every scenario, the partner has a safe return and is able to enter a legal and regulated timber market”, Faria states.