"In these difficult times, our number one concern is the safety of our people. That is why very early on, we constituted a special Committee which outlined an action plan to preserve the health of our employees, and guarantee hygienic and safe working conditions in all of our facilities. Safety measures and protocols have been specially designed for each activity and have been quickly activated. An intense educational and communication program was put together which contributed to the awareness of the current situation and development of new habits. We are proud of the commitment of our people and their trust in Adecoagro’s approach to the pandemic. A testimony of it is their willingness to come to work every day. We believe this joint effort and team spirit will help us overcome this tough situation.

We, food and energy producers, are part of a selected group of companies that have not stopped operating in those jurisdictions where total lockdown is imposed. The activities we carry out are considered “essential” and because of this, all of our operations are running, without major disruptions. In our Farming business, the prices of commodities have been impacted, with soybean and corn experiencing a fall while rice and peanut, which are the crops in which we are increasing our volumes, remained stable. In Brazil, the demand and price of ethanol have been significantly affected, causing a negative impact in our Sugar & Ethanol business. To face this situation, we quickly reassessed our strategy and adapted it to the new scenario. Sugar is now the product with the highest marginal contribution. We switched our production mix from full ethanol to maximizing sugar production, reaching close to 65%. This high degree in asset flexibility constitutes one of our most important competitive advantages, specially under such a sudden change in the market outlook conditions of the products we produce.

Just as important as our flexibility is our constant focus on increasing operational efficiencies and maintaining our costs low. Being a low cost producer is in our DNA, and now more relevant than ever, allowing us to sell our production at a profit even under current circumstances."

Mariano Bosch, Co-founder and CEO May 15th 2020