All participants will be connected in listen-only mode during the company's remarks. After that, we'll start the Q&A session when further instructions will be provided. At that time, I'd like to ask you to send the questions through our webcast platform. Live selection can be controlled by you. I'd like now to turn the floor over to Mr. Colpo for his opening remarks. Please, Mr. Colpo, over to you.
Morning, everyone. I'd like you to please, move to slide, hang on a second, please. I believe it's slide number three. I cannot see the slides. Yes, slide number three, if you will, everyone, please. We're gonna be talking a bit about, an overall view of the company as is, and about our growth. So on slide number three , we can have some, high-level numbers for the company as a whole.
We can see that the company remains a reference, a benchmark in soybean seed production in Brazil. We have a very thorough portfolio out there. 78% growth in sales for the past three years since the IPO. And we have achieved coverage of 100% of our territory in 2023, we have already started selling in Paraná. But as of 2024, as of January of this year, we're gonna be covering the whole of Brazil. Also, another highlight would be an increase in net income, 27% year-to-year growth in net income, and also the synergies across our portfolio with corn, forage, soybeans, dry beans, sorghum, and wheat. We reach 8.5% of market share, in addition to a strong growth in revenue and in adjusted net income. Moving on to slide number four now, if you will.
In speaking a bit about our financial numbers for the year 2023, my highlights would be net revenue on the first line, BRL 2 billion, a growth of 17% vis-à-vis 2022, adjusted net income of BRL 245 million, up, up 45% when compared to the previous year. A sales volume was 20% higher than developed in 2022, at 164,000 big bags, market share having 1.5 percentage points, having reached 8.5%, as I said, in a market, in the Brazilian market as a whole, as I said. And adjusted, profit growing 25% for a big bag.
And also a highlight around investments, BRL 220 million in 2023, which have been approved in 2024 will increase our capacity in, in 40,000 big bags. So those added 40,000 big bags, were invested in last year, those BRL 219 million, to be exact, that you see on the screen, which will be invested in 2023.
The investment to keep on with our expansion, which will reach 360 million big bags by 2027. Moving on to slide number five. On slide number five, we see a bit of the story of the company that started in 2009 and talks a bit some important points after IPO of the company. The company did an IPO early in 2021. We are quite pleased with the IPO with all the growth that the wake of the IPO that we were able to deliver in terms of creating value for our shareholders as of 2021 onwards. The IPO happening early in 2021. Oh. That's an important year in the company's history. We go to the stock market, B3, and then 2022, we do our first M&A for the company. We also bought the FIAGRO in 2023 and do a second acquisition.
Two M&As, one in 2022 and one in 2023. Another highlight, best addition to resolving stock capacity, which can be seen on the bottom part of the slide. On the side part of the slide, a guidance of 360,000 big bags for 2027, a market share of one percentage point per year since the IPO, one point in 2022 and now 1.1 in 2023. Today, we are selling 97% of our volume with biotech traits embedded, and our IST volume from 2020 to 2023 has grown more than fourfold. And see the industrial seed treatment. Moving on to the next slide, please, if you will. I'm gonna be talking about the 4 main strategies for growth that Boa Safra has. The four strategies are the following: increase in sales volume, number one on the slide. Our focus here is to continue to grow sales volume.
This first objective means a gain in scale. So you wanna be across the largest operation in Brazil at the best regions of the country as well. Number two, we're gonna be talking about in more detail further down the presentation. We're talking about high-techs or high-technology seeds. Boa Safra has managed to sell, and this was very good for the company's final results. Bottom line, we have been able to sell seeds with higher added value. So despite the fact that you have a drop in the price of soybeans and, as a consequence, in the price of seeds, especially the white seed, the seed, without any technology, without any traits, still we were able to manage, in a challenging year in 2023 because we were selling a very robust technology package.
We sold higher technology seeds, and that adds value, and that's part of our strategy for now and for the future. The third strategy for the future of the company, it lies around revenue diversification. You'll see that we are now growing and diversifying revenues. We're also expanding new crops, slightly above what was expected internally. But we're quite excited with what lies ahead for us. And number four, the M&As. We have already made two acquisitions, and our ambition is to continue to grow M&As an acquisition a year. That's the idea. It seems that we'll have many good opportunities in the coming years, especially because there is sort of a crisis on the horizon for the agribusiness, not for the company, quite the contrary.
We are in a very comfortable and strong cash position right now as we grow our brand, our volume, so we know there are opportunities there if we can explore this positive moment that the company is enjoying and thus benefit our shareholders and investors. I do that through acquisitions would be a way to go. Now, moving on to the next slide, slide now number seven, if you will. On slide number seven, slide number seven shows that has a snapshot of the Americas. So what's the company's strategy? To grow market share. Why do we think this is possible? When we look at the U.S., the main player in this industry, the main, the main American players, they have around 37% of a market share, 37%. The second player, 28%, and Boa Safra in Brazil holds 8.5% of market share.
So we believe, because of the snapshot, that we can continue to grow our market share, and that's the objective, to increase market share. And maybe, we could reach a similar level as, as we can see here on the right-hand side of the slide with U.S. top, U.S.'s top players. When we did the IPO, we had 5%, we did have 8.5%, one percentage point a year in, in market share, a market that grew on average by 5% a year. It's an important point, market share. So moving on to slide number eight now, if you will. I'd like to talk about the basis of our success. That's a very interesting number. I'd like to call it retention too, so that our investors can see our growth in share. So there's a map of Brazil.
Each one of those figures represents the market share we hold in that specific state. You will notice that in the light yellow south of Brazil, beige color, we had the first sale or the first sales in this in Paraná last year, at 0.3%, less than 1% in Paraná. But still, starting this year, 2024, we expect to have seeds being sold across the whole southern region, the three states of the southern region, the beige color map, that states. So we're gonna be covering 100% of the of the country as of this year. Anyway, on the right-hand side, you see the growth, very robust growth in market share. You can see in the state of Tocantins, we opened a DC last year in the state of Tocantins, the distribution center. And you can see also in Maranhão, a very robust growth that we enjoyed.
It's important to say that in 2021, we opened our distribution center in Maranhão two years ago. You can see strong growth also in the state of Pará. We do not have units in Paraná yet. We have been servicing Pará through Maranhão and through Tocantins. But Pará is also growing significantly and also in the state of Bahia. We opened a plant in 2021, and we are now investing in this plant. And in 2024, the Jaborandi plant in Bahia will be even larger than it is today. That shows where we allocate resources. We started allocating plants in the north and northeast, north, eastern regions of Brazil, and we've seen very satisfying levels of growth because of this experience going up. So. But we are also able to grow towards the north and the northeast of the country. And we are now moving towards the south.
Now, moving on to slide number nine, where you can see a bit of the units in which we have invested. It's important to say that when we did the IPO, we had three units, three units, three plants. Today, Boa Safra has 10 plants. New units will be announced as we move forward with new investments. As of 2024, we're quite excited about investment possibilities that lie ahead. What I'd like to point out is our CapEx, over BRL 500 million that we've invested since the IPO. The company has raised BRL 450 million for the IPO and has invested more than BRL 500 million. One of the sources of pride for our management, our executive board at the company, is that all of those plants, all of those factories, manufacturing sites are operating at full steam, are over 95% of capacity.
So we really did respect investors' capital and our partners' capital, and we really focused on investments that could be bringing return for the company in the short run, as you can see in our balance sheet. We are now delivering the best year of our history, and this, of course, is a source of great pride to all of us. Moving on to slide number 10 now. You can also see a solid growth that the company has shown, both in terms of net revenues, 50% a year, and also in terms of net income. Now, just the net income in this case, it's important to note that in 2023, our net income was much higher, above BRL 300 million. However, why have we been talking about net income? Because part of those BRL 300 million plus, a part of it came from non-recurring sources from previous years.
So we still adjust it, to reflect the year 2023. That leads us to a number of BRL 245 million. So we'd rather use this number, 245, 'cause it's more reassuring for investors in terms of profit level, the real profit that the company considers to be the correct one for 2023. Okay, just to be sure. BRL 245 million, again. But you can see that as of 2020, when we had BRL 70 million in profit, we couldn't really see that 245. This has been an incredible growth journey, and we are quite happy and pleased to deliver these numbers, net debt. But the bottom part of the slide, quite comfortable, negative, as the company has more cash than debt today. And the adjusted, I think, for a big bag is also growing. The company is, further when we talk about our product mix.
The company has managed to sell product with more technology embedded, as I said. Now, moving on to slide number 11, I'd like to invite our CFO and Felipe Marques to talk about the numbers on slide number 11 and onwards. Please, Filipe, over to you.
Thank you, Marino. It's a pleasure to be here with you this morning, everyone. On slide number 11, then we can see our growth. I think the most important observation to make is that as we move into 2024, we are growing our acreage in more than 56%. We moved from 144,000 hectares in 2023 to an area of 225,000 hectares of contracted land. And our production capacity this year, we had it for 240 million last year, 240 this year. So we have grown 20%. And in the area of CapEX, we have expanded in 56%.
So in a very challenging year in terms of climate, that flexibility to deliver a complete portfolio to our clients, to our, our 80 cultivars that we have in our portfolio, that's something that makes us very, very confident in our capacity to deliver. Another important point to highlight is around our cost and industrial expenses, which is totally under control. And our strategy, as Marino said, it has been so since the IPO, our growth strategy of scalability. So we show that we're able to dilute, control costs, control expenses through our growth, and that still remains as the basis for the company's growth. In addition to the other strategies, as mentioned, the high-technology seeds and investing in other crops, as Marino said, this reinforced our growth in market share from 1.1% a year.
In a year, again, where we saw decreases across several other competitors, competitors that lost volume and we gained market share in a very difficult year, that's something which is very symbolic for the company. On slide number 12, if you will, we'll show our financial performance, our order backlog, our net revenue. So we have had record revenue in the fourth quarter of 2023, BRL 842 million. And we had a change in the window from the third to the fourth quarter for the late planting season that we've had. And a great piece of news is that we have had orders in December. We never announced an order backlog for December. That's BRL 30 million, a third of which for soybeans, soybeans that were planted, soybeans that were planted in January, BRL 10 million, BRL 20 million for new crops.
So we show that in our backlog, this is a, this is real and concrete, which decreases the seasonality effect for the company. So there are results of sales of seeds in the first half of the year, which was something that we did not have before in previous periods. On slide number 13, the next slide, we reinforce our strategy around diversification. We are now starting to work with other crops, and they are important components of our strategy. We have consolidated them in this slide, and when we group them together, they're even higher or larger than soybeans. So that we can better serve our clients in a more thorough way. Think about seeds, think about Boa Safra. That's the motto. To be able to serve our clients across different crops, diversified portfolio.
We didn't have a pattern, which is not there yet, but we can optimize our portfolio from the point of view of sales and also from the point of view of asset optimization. So it's a very, how can I put it, a very synergistic strategy because we have different verticals we can look at as we approach this new call, new crops methodology. On the next slide, slide 14, we show that more clearly in numbers. We have reached or we have exceeded BRL 1 billion in terms of net revenue for the company. That's a landmark for the company in 2023. Very, it's a record-breaking year across several indicators. When we look at other crops, our other lines of businesses, as I just showed, we can see this diversification plan is a forecasting plan, but it's already being executed.
We only had 2% of our revenue under other businesses. Now that number is 6% or BRL 89 million in 2023, significant increase in our other lines of business, which shows that we are now really expanding the business, sort of changing the view. As of our IPO, we were known as a soybean seed. Now we are consolidating our image as a seed general seed company. On the next slide, slide 15, as Marino has mentioned before, we have made some adjustments. Our adjusted net profit, as if we were to show the company's consolidated number, it would be BRL 345 million, not BRL 245 million, adjusted according to two points. Number one, we removed the participation of minorities, SNIPE, small share, today around 13% only. And we have also removed Bestway; two-thirds of the company is owned by us.
So if you remove the results from the minority stakeholders and tax benefits, which have not to do with 2022, if we remove about BRL 100 million, combining all of those figures with that, we reached to a more fair number, which is BRL 245 million. That's the adjustment we made. But when you look at the gross profit, we have also grown 31% on the right-hand side. The income before taxes has, or earnings before taxes, have also grown by 32%, quite robust, reaching 240, BRL 254 million. Net operating revenue having reached over BRL 2 billion, adjusted EBITDA also growing by 32%, reaching BRL 28 million. And an important KPI for us to show you is the net income per big bag, our installed capacity.
That's the main driver that we have, and we were able to grow by 23% in a difficult year with commodity prices dropping by 30%, a very challenging year.
Still, we managed to grow. Sales prices of our seeds, as Marino said, having this high-tech seeds for new crops, and that translated into a net profit per big bag, even up 23%. And we have also grown, in sales more than we grew capacity. So we were able to increase our production capacity, which is also important, in improving our net profits in the period per big bag. Now, on slide number 16, we can show our financial performance. We tried to reach a high liquidity level, have cash and cash equivalents of BRL 737 million. In consolidated terms, a gross debt of BRL 574 million, which is offset. This is consolidated, so we have removed the FIAGRO that we have, and it shows a net debt of BRL 164 million.
When you look at net debt over EBITDA, the ratio is negative now, which shows the company's solidity. It's also important to reinforce that FIAGRO that we have to consolidate, FIAGRO, are what we grant them, are our receivables. The receivables move to FIAGRO. So at the end of the day, receivables are used to settle the FIAGRO. The BRL 345 million of receivables, BRL 335 million of those, were allocated to FIAGRO. So for accounting reasons, we do not separate those receivables in our balance sheet. But at the end of the day, those receivables are put in the bill for the FIAGRO, which is basically happening at the end of April, early May. Those are short-term receivables, just to be. Okay, on slide number 19, or 17, rather, sorry.
We got to call Marino back for him to talk a bit about the company's growth by big bag and talk about our new mix, our high-tech seed. Marino, over to you, please.
Thank you, Felipe. Now, we are on slide number 17 again. Very important picture there on slide number 17 because it shows the average price. This is the average price per bag, per bag of the seeds sold by Boa Safra. Here on the right-hand side, we have a breakdown of that price, the average price. And what can we see? If you look at the seed, the traditional seed without any biotech traits, you'll see that it makes up part of the price, the raw seed. Before, back in 2018, much of the seed that we sold was what you call raw seed, just the seed, no biotech traits.
We have been adding technology to those seeds, to that raw seed. So today, 97% of the seeds we sell have some kind of tech, biotech trait embedded. So it's a combination of a raw seed, which is the raw material, the foodstuff. Today we sell seed plus biotech traits. And 35% of our sales have already included the other items that we call seed treatments, to be exact. The most common of which is the chemical insecticide. It's the most common IST. But we do have more thorough complete biological fertilizers, inoculants, nematicide, other molecules, cobalt, molybdenum copper, cobalt. So today, we do have technology in place or technologies that have the process to sell seeds that cost more than BRL 50,000 per bag. So how have we managed to grow from 2022 to 2023?
Because if you look close, the raw seed, the price dropped for raw seeds because soybean prices dropped. If we were a company not focused on technology, we would have a sale price which would be certainly lower than the one we had in 2022. But we were able to have an average of BRL 500, BRL 500 reais extra per bag because we have added technology. So we sold more biotech, more chemical insecticides, biological fertilizer, inoculants, molecules, nematicide. So the more complete is the package, the more technology we include, the higher is the final price or the final average price for our seeds. Of course, we are delivering more for growers, for farmers. And you still have this, how can I put it? We deliver more results for the company at the end of the day.
For us, margins, when we include those treatments, are better than margins for the raw seeds. So we tend to grow margins, which is what happened this year. We grew both in net income, just in net income, and also in net income, all income lines we've grown above what we had grown in terms of average sale prices. So we're quite pleased with that. We are delivering more to growers. And we have, tried to sell more products that include all those, add-ons. One of the strategies which proved to be very efficient was the one around the DCs, the distribution centers. When you have DCs closer to farmers, this allows us to sell those treatments already at the seed level because the life cycle for those treatments is usually low.
You cannot include biological fertilizers or other inoculants or nematicides, some of which into the seed, way beforehand. You have to do it close to planting, ideally two-three weeks before planting. They have a very short life cycle, about a couple of months. So if the idea is to have distribution centers out in the field, treatment stations out in the field, that's what we need for our CapEx so that we can sell products with higher added value. I say that clients need to understand we are trying to sell a seed as if it were a car, but a car with several add-ons. Air conditioning, power steering, it's just a joke, but that's the idea. It's not a simple vehicle, but it's a high-end vehicle, right? That's what we do. We try to sell seed with the higher possible technology package included.
Now moving on to slide number 18. This is a slide that's my favorite, to be sure. I like this chart because it shows the level of deliverables we have managed to achieve when compared to the IPO. We have numbers for 2020, the numbers we have just announced in 2023. You can see the growth, the progress. When we talk about acreage in Brazil, planted area, 20% growth from 36 million hectares to 44 million hectares in 2023. Our capacity doubled through the same period. We have already new areas, contracted to reach 240,000 big bags in installed capacity. This will materialize in 2024. The investment for that has already happened, happened last year. I look at the sale of biotech traits, we have doubled the volume, 60%, 2.6 times growth in terms of biotech volume.
The IST has grown 4.3 times, more than four times in treatments, more than twice the installed capacity. Our market share is the same. We moved from 5%-8%, 1% a year on average in terms of gain of market share. Our adjusted net profit also is showing significant growth, skyrocketing over three times growth. We were a company that provided, that delivered BRL 70 million in profit, and we are now a company that delivers BRL 246 million in income in 2023, as you can see on the bottom line of the slide. Also, the profit per big bag, which has also grown, we have grown 70% the profit per bag.
How did we do that? Selling again higher technology products, even though soybean prices are going down, commodity prices are going down, but we managed to sell a technological package, which was more complete, more thorough for our clients.
On the right-hand side of the slide, you can see a bit of our guidance, 240,000 big bags in 2024, that's the guidance. And till 2027, we plan to reach 360,000 big bags. I'd like now to turn the floor over to our operator to start the Q&A session. So please, over to you, to our, perhaps our IRO, José Henrique, to moderate the questions. Over to you, José, please.
Thank you, Marino. I'd like to thank you all for the questions which were sent. We will now continue to address them. The first question from Pedro from XP. Thanks for the presentation, congratulates the company. And the question is from Marino. Can you give us some more color on the strategy to grow in the south? Who will be your main partners for distribution, and what kind of volumes can we expect in 2024?
How many cultivars will start this year, and what's your expectation in terms of growing the acreage?
Hi, Pedro. Thank you. Well, I'm gonna give you some more color then, as you asked. We are now moving to the south of Brazil. Our objective is to have a plant in the southern region of Brazil and also to grow in that region. But first and foremost, we want to be sure of where we will invest. So we have not gotten anything wrong so far. We can say that all our CapEx, that's a highlighted company. Our CapEx was allocated to areas where we have high confidence. All our plants are up and running, so we decided to go to the south. It's a region we do not know really well, so we decided to go with caution.
So today, we have five seed producers, seed companies, our competitors in theory, but they are using our brand to produce their seeds. We have, they, what we call a white label product. They are delivering seeds under our brand, about 15 cultivars for the southern region. We have put together a sales team, our own sales team, to lead there with our footprint, and we'll start with caution, with third-party partners, until we are sure and we are confident of the best area to have our footprint. We have four regions we are now assessing, but we wanna be sure of the best possible area for us to finally invest. So I'd say for the first two years, we will use third-party partners to get to know the region, try to check on the product acceptance.
It seems to be doing well, but we want to confirm all of that. Then we'll be making a final investment starting in the coming years when we have a better strategy in place. But we are quite excited. The initial talks have been very, very promising. We see great potential in the south region of Brazil, which accounts for one-third of the volume in Brazil.
Okay. two questions from Pedro about the backlog. We'd like to see a breakdown of the amount of the backlog of orders. Number two, increase in revenue from reaching BRL 11 million in 2023, Felipe.
Well, Pedro, thank you for your question. In terms of our order backlog, well, one-third of it is under soybeans, which we moved to January as the rainfall season was a bit later this year.
And one-third has to do with new seeds that are now part of our portfolio, our new lines of business, as mentioned in the presentation. So two-thirds have to do with new businesses. And that's where we're gonna be focusing our energy, and I'm gonna be showing that to you in the coming quarters. You're gonna have access to that information, the stake, the share of soybeans, and the share of the other crops so that you can monitor that growth, not only by looking at the revenue line, but also having a closer look at the order backlog. In terms of diverse revenues, approximately BRL 3 million, BRL 3 million from SMAC and BRL 8 million from other crop services at the offer. So that's the makeup of those other lines that you see in our balance sheet.
Pedro, if I can complement our expectations in terms of sales for the southern region in this year, it's 13,000 bags. First year, 2024, expect to sell something about 13,000 bags out of those 240,000 in capacity that we'll have, 13,000 out of 240,000.
Thank you. Questions from Henrique from BTG. The seed prices have grown 6% year-over-year for soybeans despite the drop in commodity prices. Could you help us understand the share of royalties and biotech, and how do you expect prices to behave in 2024?
So, Henrique, soybean prices have dropped significantly and continued to drop. Soybean prices were BRL 180 last year. It went down to BRL 120, a drop of 60 BRL from 180, which is a 33% drop last year in soybean prices, 33%.
That 33% drop affected, on average, to the tune of 13% of the price of soybean seeds, the raw seed with no biotech traits, and the raw seed without any treatment. In spite of that, Boa Safra Sementes managed to sell more expensive seeds than in the previous year, on average, of course. The average of our products were higher, but why? We reached BRL 9,000 on average price for seeds because we sold more expensive seeds, seeds that had more biotech traits embedded. So to give you some more color, we have seed treatment processes. If you look, for example, at common conventional seed, it might be worth around BRL 8,500. You can have two that will vary from BRL 2,000-BRL 6,000, which are added, optional. Simple treatments, simple fungicides, we have fungicides, miticides, biologicals, root enhancers, molecules, inoculants. All those treatments might be added.
So the whole package might reach as high as BRL 6,000. So what happened? We are now selling more seeds with a complete biotech package included. So that's what pushed the average prices up. So that's why we managed to sell higher average prices compared to 2022, because of more biotech traits embedded. That also, of course, implied more gains, more growers, and more margins for the company. So even in a year where commodity prices went down, we were able to have better results. Of course, commodity prices affect the price of the seeds, of course. Soybean prices dropped 32%, but the seed prices dropped by 10%-12%, which follows suit. But when you talk about the biotech package, you're able to offset those variations. We sold more, higher packed seed.
Technology, at the end of the day, helped us overcome some difficult numbers we had in 2022, not only in terms of volume. Of course, volume was higher. Everything grew across the board, but not only that, technology also grew. So we were able to offset dropping prices by using more technology, which provides more margins. In a nutshell, that's what happened. So how do we see 2024 going forward? Soybean prices are down again, another 20%, 33% in 2023, and until now, another 20%, BRL 120 down to BRL 100 per bag.
So we believe we should continue to invest in distribution centers, continue to invest in training teams, continue to be close to growers and resellers, continue to focus on biotech packages, continue to bring more products to the market, have investing in biologicals significantly, to be able to offer farmers a biotech package, which is superior at the end of this. The drop this year was not as significant as last year's, not 20% last year's this year, but still, we'll be able to offer a technological package with more treatments, which will be more efficient for growers. We have very bold targets here, the company, and we hope to be able to deliver not only more volume, as we will, but also to have better margins despite the adverse scenario in terms of commodity prices.
Okay. Thank you. Another question from Henrique. 56% growth in acreage.
Suggests that your installed capacity can be going above 240,000. Can we think about a different CapEx number in view of that? How can the company balance that and balance that with inorganic and organic growth?
Good question, Henrique. We have increased. Our installed capacity grew by 20%, and our acreage grew by 50% of our accredited growers, seed producers. So this was a strategy we put in place to be able to select the best seeds and then try, in a very difficult year for seed production, try not to see a significant drop in volume. It was a very efficient strategy. We started this in June, July last year. At the time, El Niño was just a forecast, but we wanted to increase the area. We believed it was gonna be a difficult year for seed production.
This year, it's not likely to be as hard as we thought, still challenging, of course. I believe that this increase in 50% in seed acreage would make a difference. We believe we'll be able to produce 240,000 big bags as predicted. That growth was like an insurance policy we had to use, and we were right in doing so. That's the good news. Until now, all the soybean fields are looking good, and we'll be able to really materialize those 240,000 big bags this year. High-quality gain in a somewhat difficult year for the industry and for farmers as a whole. It's a very good strategy, but it worked, as I said, as an insurance policy.
Okay. We think it was a good policy. Thank you. A final question from Henrique about other crops.
About the corn processing ramp-up to reach 1.3 million bags of corn. How can we expect this ramp-up to go? And what are the main opportunities for other crops in 2024?
Henrique, we are quite excited with corn. Corn has been growing. Last year, we got to as high as 45% of capacity for corn. Coming operational, this should grow this year, but our expectation to have a full year, 1.3 million in excess of corn seeds, that expectation is for next year, 2025. 2025, expect to be running at full speed, and we should continue to grow. I have already given you guidance for corn. I said in 2027, we would reach three million bags. So far, no investment is expected for this year or corn this year, but the capacity has been growing steadily.
And as to other crops, we've seen surprising results for other crops in terms of demand. Some products where we had reduced volumes last year, they sold out really quickly. We are now launching other products, among which wheat and dry beans, sorghum also doing well. Forage crops, corn, I already put together all the teams for all crops. We have the teams in place and a very promising scenario. One of the main objectives we have across other crops are four, as I mentioned. We continue to need in soybeans, that's one, to sell more high-tech seeds, high-technology embedded, especially through treatments, to expand the company to be recognized as a company with a broad seed portfolio and to have M&As or strategies that we have in place. One of the highlights I'd like to give is the strength of the brand.
We have a brand which is very strong out in the field. Clients see us in a very good light. Farmers acknowledge our quality. Forage crops are an example. When we started selling seeds for grass with the Boa Safra brand, growers immediately accepted, welcomed our brand, very high demand. And for other crops, I can say the same is happening. And we have different synergies, like the same sales team. We optimize the use of DCs. We have the same distribution centers for different crops, the same logistics teams, the same distribution approach, same brands. So a lot of synergies. And that's a project that we are very confident in. 6%. And if you look at how much we have grown in soybean growth we've seen, we have tripled from 2%-6% in one year. And we can expect more growth in coming 2024 for new crops.
Thank you, Marino. A question from Larissa from Itaú. Congratulations on your results. If you could comment what we can expect in terms of cash generation for 2024, operational cash flow.
Larissa, good question. Thank you. That's an important point that you raised. Because of the consolidation of those companies, SNAG and FIAGRO, when you look at our operational cash generation, sometimes it does not clearly reflect what really the operation represents. Most of what has consumed cash last year was accounts receivable. And our accounts receivable, which saw an increase, BRL 485 million. BRL 335 million of those were linked to FIAGRO, allocated to FIAGRO. So we increased the fund last year so that we could allocate more receivables to the fund at the end of the day. So as we grew revenue and as this demand for credit grew, we have allocated most of our receivables to FIAGRO.
So that offsets demand for operating cash, as you can see. Last year, we sold about 120 million quotas for the FIAGRO in the market. If you look at this slide, you'll see a positive effect when those resources came in, which increased our cash equivalent, and we still have 65 million in quotas to be sold, as we showed in our balance sheet. When you look ahead to 2024, we see a year that we are growing full capacity. We expect those numbers in sales to, of course, increase as well. That's what we're working to see happen. We also saw an interesting leap from last year. What's gonna happen this year?
I don't know, but the company's capital structure through this allocation of receivables to FIAGRO, as explained, this represents a very strong capital structure, and that's where the company stands out, that we can keep our growth level because of that capital structure, even with a higher demand under receivables. A positive fact, when you talk about our deferred and fiscal assets, this year we have used the current tax benefits that we had, that we were entitled to, and we have a balance of over BRL 90 million coming from that income tax from previous periods. So we start the year with a positive balance that can help us mitigate cash effects to pay taxes.
So we start 2024 with a capital structure which is very solid through FIAGRO, as I mentioned, and also taking into account that deferred fiscal assets, a very good structure in terms of having good operating cash flow when you look at those two verticals.
Thank you. Next question, Ricardo. Boa Safra tries to convert cash from EBITDA to operating cash. That's a question. Accounts receivable increased significantly in the fourth quarter, correct? And can you explain the relationship between FIAGRO, SNAG11, and the company's cash generation?
Okay, Ricardo. Part of that has already been addressed in my previous answer. So the company needs to look at FIAGRO combined with operating cash. Well, if you separate those two, it can be misleading at the end of the day. That's a conversation we had with our executives internally. Only have 12% FIAGRO, 13% of FIAGRO, to be sure.
Those BRL 65 million, as most of the assets were allocated to the fund, there is an understanding on the part of our auditors that we would need to continue to consolidate. That's why it demands a more detailed assessment. We need to be able to see that that increase in receivables, most of which is being allocated to FIAGRO, and all those quotas that we sell every year, they come in as cash, and that's why our cash increases and also increases the company's liquidity position. Looking at it from a consolidated point of view is very important. As for the receivables issue, I think it is important for the company, and that's why we have FIAGRO, because we need a capital structure that would allow us to gain traction in sales and also meet credit demands. It's a short period, four-five months.
Most payments are happening April and May, but we saw that happening. That's why we had the FIAGRO put in place. It's a very important structure for the company from the point of view of receivables that make the fund grow. We did this way back, thinking at this moment, and thinking of this moment, which was a very correct decision. Through that, we're able to grow the company, and also we're able to allocate those receivables to the fund. We didn't want that to be a limitation for the company. I believe the strategy, looking back, we are able to share with you that this was a successful strategy. Now looking forward, we now are able to continue to maximize those processes and include them for new operations as the company continues to grow.
Thank you. Question from Vitor. Good morning.
If you could give us more detail about IST margins. Also if you give us an idea about the margin of contributions for IST, and how do you see the competition in this industry?
Marino, over to you. Well, Vitor, thank you for your question. Speaking a bit about IST, industrial seed treatment, in terms of margins, seeds have a margin of around 10%, 10-11%, maybe 12, some percent, in terms of income, bottom line. I'd say 10% margin. When you're talking about soybean seeds, new crops have better margins, the new crops, smaller market share or smaller market, but better margins. IST has a margin of around 25%, bottom line, 25% for treatments. We have products that up to 40% of margin. You have, for example, biologicals and other molecules. Margins tend to go up. Others will hover around 15%, but on average, 25%.
So the idea is to sell higher margin products, of course, but on average, 25% margin for those products, treatments. As we are able to sell more seeds combined with technology, we'll have more revenue. We're gonna be closer to that 25% margin level, and with that, the company's income will grow. That's what happens. If you look closer, our growth in revenue and income was lower than the growth. We grew in revenue, but grew much more in income rather because we lost some revenue in seeds, the raw seeds, as I mentioned, but increased the sales of high-tech seeds. So margins increased at the end of the day. That's our strategy for this year also. As to your second question about the competition, it is a fact. It is a clear fact that there's been a slowdown.
We do not have official sources to be able to state and give you numbers, but out of conversations we've had and out of what we've seen in terms of M&A opportunities out there, most of the industry has seen decreasing results. We've seen much worse numbers in 2023 when compared to 2022 when we talked to resellers, field teams. Several companies saw significant failures. Syngenta dropped sales even up to 20% in volume sold, 20% in drop. We grew significantly in most of the growth in Brazil, in the Cerrado region especially, happened under us, under Boa Safra. From what I've seen, we were one of the few companies that managed to grow, and we grew significantly, right? More than 25% in volume. Very good sales volume, very good growth in income, very good growth in IST.
So it's a year that helped us consolidate our position, our leading position in the market, given the fact that other players didn't have a very difficult year. That open leads to another question which was not asked, but it seems to us that we'll have a more favorable scenario for M&As going forward, once again, given a more difficult scenario for the competition based on what we've seen and heard. Again, we are in a good position to access capital. We have a very low level of debt. We are well positioned in the market. Our brand is well known, consolidated, so that may lead to other M&A opportunities. Of course, we are excited with that as well as we look ahead to 2024.
Thank you. Question from Vitor, investor. MP 1185, what expect the tax rate for the company to be at?
Good question.
That's a very current topic, tax rate. Well, first, there are many discussions going on with our financial advisors about this new revisory measure L1125. We may lose some tax benefits that we enjoyed in the past, so we're discussing what's gonna happen. That's a topic which is still under conversation, is still controversial. So the company's investing time to try and understand that new tax horizon so that we can improve our efficiency, of course, in terms of tax management. So what we have done for the company on that front, the company has started to pay dividends last year, so the interest on equity is a good way of decreasing effective tax rates. If the company decides to go forward with that, we have a very significant capacity to do that. Depending on the numbers, we could reduce by seven percentage points the income rate.
The company makes a lot of investments as well. As we have announced, it has been approved by the board. Investments are on a high level today. We're also discussing, or there's discussion at the Congress level too, amortize in two years for machinery and equipment for the government, trying to make companies to continue to invest. As we are a company that invests, we may benefit from those moves coming from Brasília. Also, we also have a tax depreciation which is higher than that of the accounting front, so you can also reduce your tax rate. Also, regional programs, when we talk to our financial advisors, all those agreements are still valid, so benefits granted by the state are still good. We have shared that. We have Indústria Goiás, has something called Produzir, a program that benefits in tax terms companies such as ours.
So there are several avenues for us to follow to benefit or mitigate our tax payments. And we'll continue to explore those possibilities and give you some color as we move forward. And some of those programs are still ongoing, still valid. So we can even imagine that the company will have good, good, good or favorable tax rates. In addition to the fact that we have a cash effect, as I said, we have deferred assets of over BRL 90 million as of early 2024. So for cash effect, we're also able to preserve and use that stock that we have to be able to mitigate cash effect that might emerge. That's a topic we have been discussing closely, and it'll be giving you some color as we move forward. And the impact coming from the new law. Thank you.
Thank you. Gabriel from MC Invest. Good morning.
And my question is about the capital structure. You have a negative debt level. What do you have in mind in terms of optimizing that capital structure?
Thank you for the question, and Marino and I are very happy and proud to have received the award, Great Place to Work, just as an observation. We want to have the best people with us. This will allow us to deliver results going forward. Now that we're moving to Brasília also. Anyway, our capital structure as per net debt, that company we're working on, we are approving an investment of BRL 140 million for the year. So we are using our capital structure, which is robust, in our favor. And that happened through the SNAG and the long-term debt. That's what we have.
When we look at long-term debt at the company, we see that almost all our debt matures in over five years. It was a well-done job. We fixed rate debt. 99% of our debt is prefixed. And we did it already with an eye at future projects. So that allows us to continue to allocate capital and, of course, paying out dividends. We've paid out significant dividends last year. And then also through our interest on equity. So through our capital structure, we have been able to optimize both investments and payouts, yep, potential M&As, of course, given our comfortable position in the balance sheet.
Thank you. A question from Guilherme. Congratulations on the results. Can you comment on the derivatives? What's the company's hedging strategy?
A great question. As Marino mentioned, we have trusted our hedging policy, especially in a year of such high volatility around soybean prices.
They dropped up over 30%. Not only that, we saw ups and downs throughout the year, which are quite sharp ups and downs. So our hedge policy, where we manage the purchase of raw material with the sales of seeds, that was key to our execution capacity. Put together a policy, and then we executed that policy, and that was very, very well done. And that's what set the company apart. That's something we've been doing. We continue to do in 2024. And that's a strength of the company. We're able to implement a risk management policy that others cannot. So in 2023, we saw many industry companies that suffered because they were exposed in terms of stock levels, inventory levels, and many of those products were not hedgable, if you will. Could not be hedged by financial instruments.
But we could, and we have a very good, very efficient hedging policy in terms of seeds. We have a team in place to execute that policy so that we are not exposed to that volatility. Our business is to sell seeds and not to take positions in the soybean market, whether it goes up or down. We want to be neutral irrespective of market movements. And we have people taking care of that, to ensure the margins for our seed business irrespective of the soybean overall scenario. Thank you.
Thank you all for your questions. As we've received many questions, the ones which have not been answered, please send them to the IR email. Over to Mr. Colpo for his final remarks. You may proceed, sir.
I'd like to thank you all investors.
Three years after the IPO, we are quite pleased with the results we are able to deliver now and being able to deliver those growth rates very much based on the project we presented officially back at the IPO. So again, we are quite pleased with what we have achieved and with the numbers we presented. So congratulations to all the team. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Boa Safra's annual earnings call is now over. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.