As we begin 2023, we perceive a moment of great instability in the political and economic fields and the countless challenges that our country and various regions of the world are facing at this moment. We are still at war in Europe and in a post-pandemic period that is still uncertain, which moves markets around the world, bringing even more volatility to highly dependent sectors in this world, whose physical borders are getting smaller and whose impacts of actions, even if taken thousands of kilometers away, they reach every corner in a matter of seconds.

In this increasingly challenging scenario for goods and currencies on the five continents of Planet Earth, in the coming weeks, we will begin our twentieth sugarcane harvest at Power plant Vertente, in Guaraci, São Paulo, in partnership with the Humus and Tereos Groups. The numbers for our 2022, 2023 harvest at Vertente set many records, and other challenges we are working on with our teams, so that we can celebrate these two decades of operation by consolidating ourselves as one of the main players in this competitive sugarcane world.

We ended last season with the crushing of 2.13 million tons of processed sugarcane and the production of 3.6 million bags of sugar; 70.37 million liters of ethanol, between anhydrous and hydrous; in addition to 106,000 megawatts of bioelectricity, produced by burning sugarcane bagasse, exported to the network. Our average productivity jumped from 72 tons of sugarcane per hectare, in the 2021, 2022 harvest, to 82 tons of sugarcane in the last season, still below our agronomic potential and reflecting the bad weather in recent years.

In order to improve our performance , we are investing on several fronts, from professional training and training of labor for our unit to large investments in irrigation and continuous improvements in cultural practices on different fronts. In the agronomic area, in 2022, we finalized the installation of a pilot center pivot irrigation project in an area of 80 hectares, with an investment of around 4 million reais, which should increase, already in this 2023 harvest, the average productivity in at least at least 10 more tons of sugarcane per hectare, mitigating the impact of periods of drought.

The project is also complemented by fertirrigation, which consists of the application of wastewater together with vinasse in the cane fields, thus mitigating part of the Vertente's water deficit. This investment in pivot irrigation, necessary to improve our productivity rates, was only possible thanks to the availability of water, since we are located on the banks of the Rio Grande, with a permit for use already approved.

We invested an additional 2 million reais in the acquisition of two new equipment for the application of localized vinasse, always bearing in mind the principle that sugar is produced in the field, with continuous improvements, ranging from soil preparation, with cultural practices, harvesting and transporting the sugarcane.

We hope that, for the 2023, 2024 harvest, we will already be able to reap the results of these large investments and that we will be prepared for more on other fronts, keeping ourselves ready for constant improvements in our processes. But it is not just in the field that we are investing. In the industrial area, our teams are also working on process improvements, automation and better performance.

We were one of the first units in the country to extract sugarcane juice using a hybrid system, where the primary juice is extracted in a milling suit and, afterwards, a modern diffuser system extracts the maximum of the raw material, making us reference in this matter.

But all these numbers are only possible thanks to an engaged team in constant training, another uninterrupted investment front in our unit. In recent years, we have noticed an increasing deficiency in mid-level professionals for the functions of operators, electricians, mechanics, field professionals, drivers, among many other professions.

With this lack of manpower in mind, we sought out the National Bioenergy Union, an entity that I have had the honor of chairing since last year, and Datagro Consultancy , with which, together, we are designing an innovative project that will open up a new line of training. and professional training, addressing a deficiency that is increasingly present in numerous units.

Work in professional training, by the way, has always been a feature present in our management. Already in the early years, when Vertente was built, I sought to help the region's municipalities, along with literacy and professional qualification programs, with solid partnerships that brought countless results.

It is because we believe in the potential of human beings that Power plant Vertente, National Bioenergy Union and Datagro are investing in this new format of training and qualification courses, the results of which we will surely reap in the coming years.

All these efforts, however, tend to strengthen us, as a sector, to be ready to meet the growing search for sustainable solutions for the avid clean energy market, which will certainly have ethanol at the forefront in the race for a solution clean and renewable in the matrix of light vehicles, even more so now, with hybrid flex vehicles, a new revolution for our segment.

Still taking into account the aspects related to the practice of environmental, social and corporate governance, Vertente is, once again, ahead, and with its partner, Tereos, they have made an investment in the production of biogas, which should replace the use diesel heavy-duty vehicles for a less polluting solution, which will contribute even more to our energy balance in the medium and long term, to obtain decarbonization credits.

For all this, I feel renewed for another harvest at the head of Vertente, the Humus Group and our National Bioenergy Union, a reference today in professional training in our sector. May we feel energized and invigorated for the new challenges that present themselves, in the certainty that, at this very moment, the future is rising.