Ready to start a new harvest and production cycle for the 2024/25 harvest, we are once again experiencing the dilemma of seasonality, alternating good years with excellent harvests, such as 2023/24, with challenging years, such as that we are about to enter.

Most of the time, this seasonality considers climatic factors that alternate year to year and whose predictability is increasingly difficult to achieve. Therefore, we hope that Saint Peter and God, Brazilian as he is, can intervene in our favor. Exceptional years bring us resources to renovate sugarcane fields, more appropriate cultural treatments, expanding areas, searching for new technologies and financing research to expand our portfolio, among others. However, lean periods require optimization of expenses, with a reduction, especially, of sugarcane field renewals, cultural practices and, consequently, expectations for the next harvests. A constant cycle of ups and downs sets in.

A strategy used by other market links is to add value to the final product. It is essential for companies that want to stand out in the market, meet consumer expectations and improve their profitability. It therefore involves a holistic approach that considers different aspects of production, quality and consumer relations.

We understand adding value as the process of transforming an initial resource or input into a more valuable final product, whether through improvements in quality, usefulness, or consumer perception. The concept is applied across a range of industries and sectors, including agriculture, manufacturing and services.

In more than 500 years of history, our sugar industry, since Colonial Brazil, has reinvented itself and added value. We moved into the sugar and alcohol industry, when we introduced alcohol production in our plants; for bioenergetics, when we use bagasse and then sugarcane straw to produce energy through biomass; for the production of second generation ethanol, from waste that was previously neglected or misused; for biogas using biodigesters; for green plastic, among others.

This added value involves numerous fronts, such as quality improvement, investments in technological innovation, product diversification, environmental sustainability, personalization and customization, production efficiency, certifications and qualifications, sustainability, among others.

It is imperative that our sector constantly reinvents itself, focusing on new approaches to ensure security against climate and environmental uncertainties. We are experts in the energy transformation process, and focusing on new fronts will bring us the necessary security for a virtuous cycle.

Sometimes I have argued that we should break the stigma of 600 million tons of sugar cane per harvest. It seems incredible how we are always around that number. When we exceed it, as occurred in the 2023/24 harvest, which, in the following year, we return to a few decimal places below this ceiling. Breaking this cycle requires us to add value to our chain and pierce this bubble with solid and permanent investments.

Today, there is a lot of talk about the use of ethanol for other purposes, other than just fuel. We can add value as a source of hydrogen needed to power the electric cars of the future (and why not say the present), or even for more noble uses, such as sustainable aviation fuel and even navigation, operations that would open up an infinitely larger market, including our current production capacity.

Believing that this expansion of the sugarcane chain portfolio is the future of our sector is of crucial importance, but this requires a long-range vision with our feet firmly rooted in the present and the survival of our plants.

Analyzing the history of image capture, for example, we realize that evolution started from primitive mechanisms to reach high-quality cameras in today's smartphones. Likewise, anticipating the future is essential for success. We need to visualize how we can add even more value to our chain and expand our portfolio, adapting to growing global demands and seeking excellence in our practices.

If we only think about the future when it arrives, we are doomed to failure. We need to foresee, imagine the possibilities of adding even more value to our chain and expand our portfolio, keeping on our shelves a range of products and by-products that can meet growing global demands and make us excellent at what we do. Perhaps, in this way, we will finally be able to break the constant cycle of seasonality, expanding our horizons towards a more sustainable and humane future.