SLC Agrícola (Schneider Logemann & Cia, ) is one of the largest Brazilian agricultural producer founded in 1977 by the SLC Group. It focuses on cotton, soybean, and corn. The business is controlled by the Logemann family. It was the first company of its sector (grains and cotton) whose shares were traded in a Stock Exchange. The company operates 16 farms in six Brazilian states, totaling in the 2014–15, marketing year – of which were planted with soybean, 98,500 with cotton, 43,400 with corn, and 18,100 with other crops, including coffee, wheat, corn seed, and sugarcane. Its biggest competitor is Vanguarda Agro.
The company headquarters is Santana, Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.
The firm has attracted international attention for its part in the deforestation of the Cerrado region of Brazil.
History
SLC Agricola was founded in 1977 with the acquisition of two farms in the South Region of Brazil in Rio Grande do Sul, where soybeans, corn, and wheat were planted. In the agribusiness for 70 years, SLC Group started as an industry in 1945, in Horizontina, southern Brazil, producing tractors and combines, and creating a joint venture with John Deere in 1979, which lasted for 20 years. In 1980, SLC Agrícola bought the first farm in the cerrado biome: Pamplona Farm in Goiás State.
SLC Group
SLC Group was founded in 1945, in the city of Horizontina, State of Rio Grande do Sul, by three families of German immigrants, among them the families of Balduino Schneider and Frederico Jorge Logemann.
The SLC Group founded the first Brazilian harvester manufacturing industry. It has an over-28-year relationship with John Deere, including a joint venture for manufacturing harvesters and tractors from 1979 to 1999.
In 2007, SLC Agrícola goes public, starting to trade its shares on the Bovespa.
In 2013, it concludes another joint venture with the companies Dois Vales and Mitsui from Japan.
In 2021, the company Terra Santa, located in Mato Grosso, is incorporated for R$753 million. The deal added six farms to SLC Agrícola's units and expanded its production capacity by another 145,000 hectares.
Land distribution
SLC Agrícola holds of farmable land worth R$2.376 billion. That area is distributed through 16 farms, and each farm name starts with P and has 8 letters. Three of SLC's farms (Planeste, Panorama, and Piratini) are controlled by SLC Agrícola's subsidiary LandCo. Two other farms (Perdizes and Paladino) are farmed by SLC Agricola through a joint venture with Mitsui Co., while Pioneira is farmed in collaboration with Dois Vales Group.
Farms: Perdizes – (joint venture with Mitsui Co.) Paiaguás – Planorte – Pamplona – Planalto – Pioneira – (joint venture with Dois Vales Group) Planeste – (LandCo.) Parnaíba – Parnaguá – Paineira – Parceiro – Paladino – (joint venture with Mitsui Co.) Palmares – Panorama – (LandCo.) Piratini – (LandCo.)
Research units
Each SLC farm is equipped with a research unit, where the main research topics are fertilizing systems; soil handling systems; competition between soy cultivation, cotton cultivation, and corn hybrids; plantation seasons and rehearsals of evaluation of fungicides efficiency, insecticides, and herbicides. There experiments simulate the real land conditions and are conducted scientifically. SLC Agrícola performs 190 yearly land tests, and such tests happen in an area of .
Cultivation rotation system
The cultivation rotation systems between soy, cotton, and corn is effectively utilized within all of SLC Agrícola's farms and provides several benefits to the productive system, along with spreading the fixed costs.
The use of this technique helps the farms have better control over infective plants, fewer outbreaks of pests and diseases on the fields, and better usage of the machinery and crew.
Soil management
SLC Agrícola adopted a no-till system with the goal of significantly reducing the levels soil loss, water loss, and nutrients loss. With this system in place, it became possible to reduce the production costs through the reduction of machine operations in the fields and the conservation of soil and nutrients, which consequently reduced the need for heavy and expensive fertilization. The system provides long-term increase in productive potential of the cultivated plantations. The company believes that the sustainability of the productive system mainly depends on the correct management of the soil.