The Company is fully owned by the Sarabia family which has more than 30 years of experience in the Paraguayan agribusiness sector. Its president and founder, Jose Marcos Sarabia, has a 53.5% shareholding stake.

The proposed IFC investment consists of an up to US$20 million A Loan, renewable each year, for a total of five years.

The Company is headquartered in Ciudad del Este, Paraguay, and operates 25 distribution centers and 24 silos.

 Agrofertil is committed to good CG practices which is supported by a CG implementation plan (developed by IFC Advisory Services). In addition, Agrofertil has appropriate control and processes, commitment to transparency and disclosure, fair treatment to shareholders, and well-functioning CG. Therefore, governance risk to development impacts is considered low.

This is a category B project in accordance with IFC’s Policy on Environment and Social (E&S) Sustainability. Based on information reviewed by IFC, this investment will have limited adverse E&S impacts that are few, site-specific, and largely reversible and readily addressed through mitigation measures, as outlined in this review summary.

The key E&S issues include: (i) Agrofertil’s capacity to provide systematic and consistent management of E&S issues across its direct operations; (ii) risks associated with the transportation and distribution of products and services; (iii) risks of fire and dust explosion at silos; (iv) labor and working conditions, including occupational health and safety; and (v) Agrofertil’s internal process to ensure that any new clients or those existing clients expanding their land usage don’t source any crops for repayment to Agrofertil in critical and/or natural habitat areas of the country, as to comply with IFC PS 6 supply chain requirements.