Hi, everyone. My name is Cristiano Veloso. I'm here today with Felipe Paolucci. I'm the founder and CEO of Verde AgriTech. Felipe is our Chief Financial Officer. We will today be presenting our Q4 2023 results, alongside full year 2023 results. If you have any questions, please write them on the Q&A option at the bottom of the screen. After Felipe has finished with his presentation, I will address each one of the questions that were presented by you. If you're watching this presentation on YouTube, please and you like the content, please share it. That's how you help us spreading the word about what we're doing at Verde AgriTech.
2023, as we all know, as we all saw happening throughout the year, turned out to be one of the most challenging years for agriculture, especially agriculture in Brazil, especially for fertilizer companies in Brazil. There's no shortage of material available from other companies, public companies in the same space as ours, with plenty of background information about what has been going on, what happened in 2023. But also, there's plenty of public information about what Q1 has been like and what this 2024 is shaping up to be as well. Nevertheless, we remain working as hard as we possibly can. We remain committed to growing our company, and we remain open to the feedback, opinion, contribution from each one of you.
Each one of you who is already a shareholder, who might be thinking about a shareholder, we remain working together to carry on growing the business. I will now allow Felipe Paolucci to start the presentation. He will take you through the results, some more details on the financials, on the disclosures, and then, I will address question. In the interest of making the Q&A more organized, I will be taking the questions after the presentation is finished. So if you have any question, please add it as soon as possible to the Q&A at the bottom. Thank you very much, Felipe. Please, go ahead.
Thank you. Thank you, Cristiano. Well, first of all, we have here the screen, the coupon for our product that's available for you if needed. This is also available at YouTube after the conference and also in our website, if needed. First, a bit on market overview, then Brazilian KCl prices, a bit on the economic scenario, our 2023 results and financial statements, a bit on operational summary, sales, expenses, logistics, and then a bit on financial condition of the company and expectation for the year. On market overview, we saw during the year a strong decrease in the marketplace for price, such commodity, such, for example, soybeans, coffee, among others.
What has also impacted our business since the clients had a tough time in season to have enough cash to invest, and also this made to them to postpone some purchase and also to shift to cheaper products, or even though do not use sometimes products that they would postpone the usage. In the right side, you can see as well what happened with the KCl price, which we had a huge increase in 2022 for the reasons that prior to this disclosure.
Then now, since mid last year, a huge, a huge decrease that from December onwards, since January, let's say this year, the price has stabilized and expectation from now on is to be flat or even, hopefully an increase on the price. So this had a relevant impact also in our business during 2023. On the other side, what is something that's favorable for us in the middle term, we can say that the Selic rate, the government bond rate, has decreased, had last year another cut of 0.5%.
We do expect by the end of the year, not Verde, but the financial analysts expect that the final year we're gonna be close to 8.5% or 9% per year. This has a positive impact in our loans interest, which is already included in our budget for 2024. Also on the right side of the table, you can see as well the Brazilian real variance against Canadian dollar. What we had in the last few days as well, it's good to highlight here, is that the U.S. dollar is getting stronger, and we've passed from 5.05, I think yesterday, Brazilian reals for U.S. dollar, which also helps a bit in matter of price.
Since, the commodities are based in U.S. dollars, and as you know, KCl price also increases when Brazilian real devalues locally in Brazil. The results in 2023, a bit on cash. Cash held by the group increased by CAD 5.8 million the year. This was basically came from additional loans that the group has secured in Q3 and Q4. Cash utilized from investing activities decreased to CAD 4 million in 2023, compared to CAD 42 million in 2022. This is, was also expected since we concluded the investments, we have made in the access and also in the factory two, which demand a lot of capital in 2023. In 2022, in the entire year.
Cash generated from financial activities decreased to $5 million compared to $30 million in 2022. So this similar, so it was expected. No expectation for a huge investment out in 2024. What we have to make, it's already concluded, and we are ready to grow and deliver more product if needed during this year. Profitability to revenue in 2023 was CAD 37.9 million, a 53% decrease compared to the previous year. This reduction in revenue was driven by 54% drop in average of potash price, as I've mentioned before, and also 32% decrease in sales volume in full year 2023 to 428 metric tons compared to 620 metric tons in 2022.
EBITDA before non- cash events, which 2023 was CAD 2 million, and as mentioned, the revenue side had a huge impact on it. And also we had a 2023 impact on ECLs, which over CAD 1.6 million, which also impacted our EBITDA in 2023. Then, we had a net loss in last year of over CAD 6 million compared to a net profit of CAD 17.8 million, 2022. So the reduction on revenue, with rise on ECLs, depreciation cost, and interest expense in the year were the key attributes that delivered this, well, this loss in the year if compared to 2022.
The total non-current assets in 2023 were CAD 73.1 million, compared to CAD 65.2 million in 2022. Now, we do have a table which demonstrate the financial statements of Q4, the left side, and then the annual performance in the right side of the screen. As I've mentioned, revenue had a huge impact in the results, the reduction of over 50%, both in Q4 and full year. In the side of gross margin, you can see that we've also lost a bit here, but you can see after exclude freights, which you have in the next chart, that the impact was even higher, the price reduction. On the EBITDA, as I've mentioned, we've closed the year with CAD 2 million positive EBITDA.
And the key point here as well, depreciation, a huge impact because of the depreciation of plant two. We are taking around CAD 300,000 per month. Yes, per month, around in depreciation currently. The income, the income interest, tax, we had a positive scenario, as explained in the MD&A and press release. We had loss, cumulative loss from the prior periods, and with the taxation that we're currently on, we do have, we did have this, this positive impact in Q4. And then this will be now flat from now onwards, that's the expectation.
So in the end of the period, we had in Q4 a net loss of CAD 2.6 million, and in full year, CAD 5.9 million, close to CAD 6 million loss. On operational summary, you can see here per ton, which is good to compare. As you can see, for example, average revenue per ton at a big decrease from CAD 128 to CAD 89 per ton. But also on the other hand, you can see as well a decrease in the production cost, which was basically driven by a mix change, you know, with lower big bag sales against bulk and also mix impact, with lower BAKS sold compared to K Forte.
In the second table, we exclude the effect of freight, and then we can see again here, a relevant decrease in the price and also production cost as well, which helped a bit the results in the year. On SG&A expenses, we've highlighted the key numbers performance. You can see that on sales and marketing expenses, which covers salaries for employees, car rentals, and also travel in Brazil. With the strategy of the company for more field sales instead of long-distance sales or phone sales, it had an impact here as well for us, for this kind of investments. On fee base to sales agents, we had a relevant decrease. We had some reversion during the year, and also the mix has changed a bit.
Also the lower price per ton sold on FOB basis, which is the base that we pay the commission, it had a positive impact for us, reducing this kind of expenses. On G&A, we can highlight here the allowance for expected credit losses. As I said before, the bad debt provision, we had in the year, full year 2023, CAD 1.7 million booked already, and last year, 2022, we had none. So this is the relevant impact that we might have a chance to recover this amount in the near future, but according to the policy that we have, we must do this provision, and this was made exactly like the policy that the company holds currently.
This going forward, we have a chart here that on the left side, you can see, logistics expenses, which is our largest number for sure. You can see that, volumes sold, the CIF, remained stable, 71% in 2023 compared to 2022. But the total freight delivery cost per ton was lower in 2023, and this was mainly due to reduction of percentage of sales they made to regions that are more distant from these production facilities.
We had an increase, for example, in Minas Gerais, south of Mato Grosso, and Goiás, and São Paulo, compared to 2022, where the company had big volumes in north of Mato Grosso, which the freight is quite expensive, also Pará state in the north of Brazil and Bahia. So those regions had a decrease in the year, so this provided to us a lower investment in freight per ton delivered. In the right side of the table, you can see the mix of our sales. We basically reduced on distributor from 9% in 2022 to 5% in 2023, and this was compensated by sales made by direct sales and our internal sales field team.
The sales agents remain stable, but with a much lower price per ton, which and volume, this made our expensive sales agents to go down. On financial condition, we can see on the left side a brief summary on it. How much of cash held of the company in the end of the year, CAD 6.9 million. Relevant increase compared to the prior year. We had in Q4, Q3, Q4 relevant loans from Banco do Brasil and Banco Bradesco, total of CAD 16.2 million. And then in the end of the day, we finalized the year with CAD 46.1 million on loans a nd then we do expect to have, during 2024, an amortization of CAD 18 million, so CAD 15 million 2025 and CAD 7.8 million 2026.
So this is currently our loan profile. On the right side, you can see a graph with the quarterly projection. If none of the actions that we are looking for, as mentioned in the MD&A as well, and Brazil is change. So this is the current scenario that we have, and if we have any update or any change on it, that's material, we will let everyone knows. And yes. So Cristiano, now I think you are ready to go to the Q&A section. Anything you need, please let me know as well, and then we move forward. Thank you.
Thank you, Felipe. So, so far, we've received 19 questions. If there is any other question that comes out while I'm answering questions, or if whatever I said isn't clear, or you want more detail or triggered another question, please go back again on the chat and ask for it again. The first question here on the Q&A is about coffee growers. It's a market we all looking very carefully. So the question here is, we've made progress reacquiring coffee growers. The most of the fertilizer position by coffee growers takes place in the second half of the year, but we're doing our best to make sure we can benefit from that relationship, from the several positive results we have from applying our our product to coffee. And for some of you who might be new, just a little bit of background.
What happens when you apply potash, conventional potash, to coffee trees, is that half of that conventional potash is chloride. That chloride is absorbed by coffee trees, and that impacts the taste of the beverage, the quality of the coffee. That's why, internationally, it's very rare for you to go to a premier coffee shop and come across Brazilian coffee. Usually, you will find coffee from countries like Guatemala, Kenya, Colombia, which have in common a very different type of soil to the soil found in Brazil. The soil in those countries is of a volcanic origin, and because it's from a volcanic origin, it's already rich in potassium. So the amount of potassium that farmers from those countries need to apply is very small.
In Brazil, because soils are very old, very weathered, most of the nutrients all have, have been depleted over the years, farmers need to apply a lot of potassium as much as 400 kg of K2O per hectare, which, if you're applying KCl, it means you're applying the same amount as, as chloride. In our case, with our product, because it doesn't have that chloride, because it has all the, all the nutrients, it has a number of benefits to coffee growers, such as improving the taste of the, the, the beverage and making the application of the product more efficient. So you don't need to apply it in different installments. You can apply all the nutrient at once.
If you go on our YouTube channel, you can come across several feedbacks, several videos from some of our coffee growers highlighting what they saw as benefits. The next question: Is there a strong indication governments will enforce more mandatory carbon credits for companies anytime soon? I don't know. What I heard recently, which seems very interesting, is that I think in Europe, very soon, every cloak you buy will need to come with a label showing what was the carbon footprint of that trouser, T-shirt, whatever it is. So I think it is in the cards. I think at some point, there will be a very strong pressure on farmers to commit to a certain maximum number of CO2 emissions.
This is another opportunity for what we're doing, because of the fact our product has a much smaller carbon footprint in comparison to conventional potash. The next question: How is the new marketing sales teams doing under the current market conditions? They're doing their best. As we discussed, as I said in the opening, it's a tough market, but everyone's working really hard to try to achieve what we've set ourselves as a guidance, as a target. The next question is: Tell a bit about our financial strength and plans if this downturn of sales and prices here for a longer period of time, how we can and will survive? It's sales. I mean, it's sales.
We need, we need to be selling the product, we need to be increasing our sales, we need to be looking for different types of markets, niche markets, adapting the product, adapting the price strategy, adapting the market strategy. So we need to be fighting, in order to succeed. Next question: Has there been any negotiations with institutions recently? Anything to tell about these negotiations? I don't know what you mean by institutions. I presume it's like institutional investors. The answer in that regards is that there's nothing, there's no negotiation with institutional investors or nothing to be spoken about it. What's the timetable with carbon credits? Has everything gone as anticipated so far? There's a seminar coming in the spring. I want that seminar to take place in the coming months.
The team has been very focused on advancing the project towards the capability of issuing carbon credits. We've been working with WayCarbon, very hard, trying to get them to commit to our timeframe, so understand the urgency of this project for us. So that has been our, our target, our focus. Based on increasing late receivables, are you expecting further debt provisions this year? Felipe, do you wanna answer that question? Based on increasing late receivables, are you expecting further debt provisions this year?
Yeah, yes, we do expect to have some debt provision, yes, but lower than last year. We've made our policy to approve long-term receivables even stronger since mid last year. So the expectation now is to have a lower number, which is already included in our budget for 2024.
The next question is, and there's several questions here. So there's a few questions here about the carbon project, and I think, I've mentioned we're working hard on advancing what is required there. Then there is some questions here about the timeline for issuing carbon credits. Hard to say at the moment. The other question about the balance sheet, we all try to work as much as we can in terms of sales. As we mentioned in the press release, we're also talking to the banks about extending some of the loans. Next question here about the number of customers. There was a reduction in the number of customers. Next question here: Do you expect that the lengthy MRV period will be required to validate and accredit Verde's carbon credit before being able to close an offtake agreement? That's why we work with WayCarbon.
Hopefully, we can pre-sell carbon credits the same way other companies have been able to accomplish in the past, and that's what we are working with WayCarbon to try to achieve. The next question: When the agricultural market in Verde's current financial situation becomes stronger, if ensuing carbon credits prove a reliable, dependent financial mean for contribution to Verde's income, would there be the financial security and merit to offer a more substantial reduction in the price of K Forte, K Cl to incentivize farmers, both to try and adopt in a great number and more rapidly? This is really the rationale for you to be able to issue any carbon credits. There's something called additionality, that unless the carbon credit project, unless the issuance of carbon credits is additional to a business, you just can't issue carbon credits.
In other words , if we could grow as fast as we wanted, if we could achieve everything we wanted to achieve without carbon credits at the pace we wanna achieve, with investments we wanna make, then carbon credits just wouldn't be able to be issued. So you need to prove to the buyers, to the agencies, to the Gold Standard, Verra, you need to prove that it's additional. You need to prove that without those carbon credits, you wouldn't be able to accomplish your objective. This is something else we're working with WayCarbon to build that case. How much sales should Verde achieve to become cash flow positive with current potash prices and current product mix?
It depends on where you're selling to, it depends on the established product mix, so I think the guidance gives a bit of an idea on what would be the answer to that question. Due to K Cl price reduction, Verde was unable to compete in a few regions. That freight has relevant impact in the product cost. Some regions have large areas, and volume impact was relevant. Correct. As the price of potash sinks, as it did over the last few months, it becomes less attractive for farmers from certain regions of Brazil to change to our project. That, though, requires a lot more persuasion, so we allow farmers to understand the other benefits the product has, in addition to providing potash.
Let's not forget, we also export our product to the U.S., Canada, China, Thailand, which is much far away from the north of Brazil, also Paraguay. So I think it's down to us to improve. Our job to improve how we present the company and the product, and how we bring farmers alongside, so they can see the benefits, they can see the results, and they can use that to make their decisions. For example, there's been a massive drought in Brazil, and I was talking to a farmer who was saying, even though he was impacted, when he was talking to his farmers, to his neighbors, comparing the results he got with the neighbors, his results were far better than all the neighbors. The difference, the only difference he had was really the fact he was using our product.
So we have all of those anecdotal evidence. We hear that from farmers all the time. So it's really down to us to make a better job disseminating this advantage and allowing other farmers to understand it. Next question. With prices and volume dropping, interest costs rising, I would expect the company to make a strong effort to reduce G&A, but I see they went up. Is there a specific plan to both increase sales and also to minimize general costs going forward? We are cutting G&A whatever possible, and but there were some bets we made last year, and Felipe alluded to them, like increasing the number of our field sales team. We did that, but unfortunately, that didn't translate into additional sales, and it did have an impact on the G&A costs.
So we are navigating a little bit of a tricky scenario right now, where we were very successful via inside sales without having anyone in the field. And we're now migrating to a hybrid system, where we continue doing some sort or some element of inside sales, but equally, we are looking to hire, recruit new field sales teams to work alongside it. Last year, results weren't as good as we expected. Hopefully, this year, we can start migrating to a more effective field sales team. Next question: Do you expect pricing and volume purchases in the industry to improve measurably in the next 12-18 months? Do you have some data to substantiate these assessments, and does Verde have sufficient cash and credit resource to survive the next two, three years? Start with the second part of the question.
I think our guidance shows is clear in terms of what needs to happen. The first part of the question, it's very hard to forecast the price of potash, in my mind. It's just too tough. And not just for us as a small company, but equally for the major companies. You saw the companies like Nutrien or Mosaic, the largest players, making significant investments in the last 24 months, only to very recently write off a lot of those investments and just assume the mistakes they've made.
Those are guys who not just, you know, have a multiple of a budget and a much larger budget, but much greater team, much more access to forecast data, and we could see how they've failed horrendously on the decisions they made in terms of CapEx allocation. When it comes to us, I think we need to really be looking here and expecting the worst and really hoping for the best. That's what we're doing in terms of the strategy going forward. The bottom line is really focusing closer to where the plant is in terms of market development, in terms of presence, which is where we can command the highest sales prices. We've mapped out the region where we get the best prices.
It's not just the state, it's, it goes over the border to Goiás, to some of Mato Grosso state, some of São Paulo. So the focus in terms of market development has really turned out to be on, on those specific regions. Next question: Could it be a case of Occam's Razor? Pardon my ignorance, the first time I've heard about it. And that driving fast growth and sales can become from offering a more substantial discount to KCl, say in the region of 20%. This would incentivize conservative firms to take the plunge, counterbalance the high cost of finance competitors, and Verde can then focus once customer trust is gained on improving margins by marketing and selling its value-added products of BAKS, Bio Revolution and other technologies. Please consider in depth and give your thoughts. It's, it's definitely something we've tried to do.
It's not something we have fully committed to doing as a single-focused strategy, but there are merits there. What we're seeing at the moment, of course, in terms of the sales strategy, the sales leadership, is a view that the product is better than KCl. The product is not a commodity like KCl. We need to educate farmers about all of those benefits, and we need to price the product accordingly. So this, the downside, as you highlighted in your question, is that this takes more time to develop a market. This requires more investment than if you were really just taking an approach to turn and say, "Look, our potash is cheaper than, than KCl. I want you to start doing it. You're gonna start seeing results."
And then once you create the relationship on the- on those basis, you move on to present value-added products. So this, this is, those are discussions we're having at the moment with the senior leadership from our sales team. Next question: CO2 capture monetization. From presentation, it appears that progress is being made. What are estimated timelines for actually selling carbon credits specifically, or are 2024 sales of carbon credits expected? And if not, what is the best estimate of when? Also anticipated price on CO2 removal?
We had an option, okay? The more we learned about the carbon credit market, we saw that we either would need to build a full in-house team to be focused on that with different scientists, different expertises, or we would partner with someone who already had that knowledge, already had that expertise. We thought and kind of rehearsed going down the former route, but then we realized how difficult it was becoming to recruit enough talent and to develop all of that, given our background as a mining fertilizer company. Then we changed our strategy. We looked for who we believed to be the best in this space, and then we did a partnership with this company called WayCarbon, which is majority owned by Santander.
So it's now down to us to keep the pressure on them, to make sure we're not just one more project in their pipeline, but they see us as being a priority. So this is Lucas Brown's role, and this is what I talk to him very daily, you know, and patiently as well, as I've recently tried to accomplish that. It is clear that inability to advance credit at reasonable terms comparable to competitors is a major impediment for closing sales, which looks like it could impact this year and possibly next, similar to 2023. This is killing Verde right now. Has the company explored all possible means to overcome this problem? Answer to the first question, we're looking at.
There's barter, there's partnerships, so we're trying, we're trying the best as you can. And then there's another two follow-on questions here. Can Verde partner with a financial institution to directly finance the farmer rather than Verde? This is something Felipe has been looking at, and I think he can update us on that, Felipe, like, how you're working with the banks. So the banks can provide the funding to the farmers rather than us, in a way that we can free up our working capital and provide better terms to farmers to make it more attractive. And I think when answering that question, I think it's worth it mentioning how BNDES and BDMG both have better terms for a farmer whenever he is buying a product like ours, which is better to the environment.
So while you prepare this answer, Felipe, let me just answer the next one. To achieve the 20% of production that Verde has ability to finance, could Verde embed some financing costs into the product and then offer a lower interest rate? Something has to be done as competitors are going to continue to exploit this advantage. That is, again, something we've done in the past. That's something we should be looking at, I agree to redo again this year. In other words, Felipe, instead of saying that we offer, you know, a 5%, for example, discount to KCl, we say we offer 3% discount, but then we keep the funding terms, the financing terms cheaper. So those are very true comments. I'll allow Felipe to talk to answer the other question about his work with financial institutions to fund farmers directly. Please go ahead, Felipe.
Yes, we've been working with, for example, one of the ideas and projects is we are working with the BNDES, which is the Brazilian National Development Bank, which has the lowest interest rates in Brazil, fairly from the private institutions. And they do have an alternative in Brazil called FGI. But this operation basically means that the bank will use not the Verde credit limit or Verde assets, but the client, the final client, as a guarantor for the loan. So actually, the money does not come throughout our balance, but throughout the client, final client one.
So the idea is that the client pays the bank, like, in 12 months or 18 months, depends on the season, or 6 months, depends on the crop, and the bank would pay Verde right after we deliver the products. So this is the idea we are working on, and I do expect it takes a bit long because it's not private process, but I would expect to have this in place maybe for the next couple of months. And that's the idea one of the funds are looking for. That would be good to finance our clients and make sure that we have lower interest rate and also lower credit risk, since this bank also will analyze the credit and the risk that will be under Verde, would be no more than 20 or 25% of the total amount, and the other 75%-80% will be handled by the bank. So this is a good operation that we'd like to start to use. And for sure, this money would be cheaper than our loans and anything like this. So that's one project that I'm working on, and hopefully I have good news in the coming months.
Next question: Operationally, it appears Verde may be heading into a liquidity crunch in coming quarters. Do you anticipate a need later this year for private placement? I think there are other ways to address that. We're working with the banks, and I strongly believe those banks should be very motivated to be extending the loans, so we can, if necessary, carry on advancing, carry on growing. The next question: Will Verde, WayCarbon, or both, conduct the science to value Verde's carbon credits?
It's down to Verde and the work we're doing in terms of science with the University of Newcastle, with Professor Phil Renforth, and they are helping as far as telling us what is required under carbon credit standards and the sort of shape and size they need to see those reports and this data in order to be able to progress. The other example you had here, the negative impact on your soil performance where KCl is used due to decreased microbial activity. That's one of the elements which does happen when you apply KCl.
Next question: While sales close to site should prove more profitable, will Verde still expand out, as it has done in the past, to protect against bad disease and disease or its main crop, coffee? Absolutely, we will. By saying we are focusing in the vicinity, it doesn't mean we are giving up on sales further afield. It's to do with where we position the bulk of the sales effort, where we attend conference, agricultural conference, but that doesn't mean that the several customers we've conquered away from where we are and the ones we can reach via digital marketing, the ones we can reach in a different way, doesn't mean we walk away from them, but we truly do that. That is for the very reason you highlighted here, which we had discussed before, in terms of diversification.
Are you seeing any new traction with your new sales team and marketing team? I mean, I wish I had been seeing much more traction than I'm seeing. That's the honest answer. I think perhaps we came from a model, 100% focused on inside sales, where a very small team was capable of generating a lot of volume, and it's coming across that this hybrid or field sales team is something a little bit more slower. So not necessarily something we're used to from the history of the company, but something we're trying to adjust, trying to see if there is room for making it faster. But that is the reality at the moment. Next question.
Looking forward to 2024, are you comfortable with your long-term debt repayments requirements? And if not, what steps are being taken to address your concerns? We're talking to the banks about extending the repayment of that debt. Next question: What's the KCl inventory supplies status in Brazil? Has the number normalized or growers still facing credit issues? There is plenty of potash in Brazil. Imports have been strong. Importers who build an inventory, they built at lower prices to what we are currently seeing at the moment, because price of potash have started to recover. The exchange rate is also turning, it has changed, so the Brazilian currency has been weakening, which is, advantageous for us because makes conventional potash, KCl, more expensive to farmers and therefore makes our product more competitive.
In terms of the growers, there is a record number of farmers in Brazil applying for creditor protection. We've had farmers who were our customers that have applied for that sort of credit protection, and this is something relatively new in the Brazilian legislation, something similar to Chapter 11 in the U.S., where a company can apply to the courts to say it's going through a difficult time, and then the court essentially will sanction an agreement between the company and its creditors. And what often happens in those sort of discussions, what's happening to us is that the farmer in our case, he will be presenting some very, very low offers.
So for example, there was one farmer that, as an example, his debt with us was $1,000, and he turned to us and told us that he can pay $100 in 20 years with no interest rate. So that's usually the sort of opening offer that comes up, then, you know, the creditors will accept or not. Usually the first offer doesn't get accepted, and then something else comes a little bit more reasonable. But historically, every time you have one of those creditor protection schemes, the end result is that the creditor has to agree to some pretty hefty haircut in order to recoup some of its debt.
So the creditor, especially the banks in Brazil, they keep trying to change this legislation because it's very pro debtor. But so far, this is what the regulation is, and so far, that's what we're suffering from some of the farmers who haven't been able to pay us. But one of the advantage, though, is once you go through that, it's if the farmer if we agree to some sort of discount to a farmer, then later on, if he can't honor it, then he kind of like it's harder for him to get around it.
So that's the sort of system in place in Brazil, which you can look, research more information or contact us if you don't understand in detail. Next question. Nutrien leaving Brazil have on the industry and Verde specifically affect? That's a good question. So recently, very recently, a few days ago, there's been an article on Reuters about what's happening with Nutrien in Brazil. It's something we've been following closely. You know, I was personally approached by some executives from Nutrien leaving, who interviewed for jobs at Verde. So we kind of know in detail what's going on there.
It's interesting to see, because since there was the merger between Agrium and PotashCorp, half of what was said by the leadership of the new company was about how Brazil was the key market, how they're gonna grow in Brazil. Then they came in, there was a number of acquisitions that took place and events, I would say, beyond their control in terms of the deterioration of the price of fertilizers. They had some big stock bought at higher prices impacted the economics, perhaps the sort of valuation, the sort of multiples, the sort of companies they chose to acquire in the distribution space in Brazil. Perhaps that brought them problem. There was a short- term.
It's very hard for us to add to that discussion, but I do recommend everyone reads the Reuters article on the topic, which is very good, as background information. The next question: Are there plans to monetize the technology, for example, via licensing? If yes, do you have a timeline in mind, and what revenue are you targeting? There's no plans on licensing, no timeline. If you have any ideas, if you have any suggestions, we're open to hear from you, but we haven't been able to come up with anything in that regards. How much volume have been sold to China? Could export be a bigger impact? What kind of customers do you have in China? It's not a lot. It's in the thousands of tons.
It's not in the tens of thousands of tons. The customer we have in China is the country's largest agricultural corporation company that controls a number of distributors, so it's a premier customer. I went to China, visited them. It's very impressive operations. They have big expectations for our product, but it's a slow process because it requires convincing farmers. They need to see the yields. It's more properties, but they do their job in their own time. Next question: Looking five years ahead, what revenue mix do you envisage for Verde? Fertilizer, carbon tech? That's a difficult question because they kind of work hand to hand. So I was just talking earlier on about additionality. The way you can sell, the way you can monetize carbon credits is by proving it's additional to your business.
So you can either create a baseline with the current customers and then say, "Look, from now onwards, in order for us to grow, we will be requiring to sell carbon credits." The way we will be requiring to sell carbon credits, usually you create a price, a new pricing policy, where the farmer will decide whether he pays full price, in which case we, you know, don't get carbon credits, in which case, if he decides to get carbon credits, it's down to him, or we have a different pricing where it gets subsidized by carbon credits. So it's hard to give a an answer in that regards. Next question: Are covenants regarding your loans is to a threat for Verde if sales prices stay mostly flat or rise again? Felipe, in terms of the covenants in the loans, which is what this question here is, the different covenants you have, if prices deteriorate, are there other covenants which are relevant to what's going on?
No, what we have or had last year is already included, as you saw in the press release and financial statement audit, publicly made public last week. We have already an agreement with the local bank that had this agreement in problem. So I do not have an expectation to have issue again in 2024, and if we do, I'm sure that the bank will negotiate again and provide to us a waiver as they did last year.
The next question: What type of new products or technology are we working on? What patents are we waiting for? The new products technology we're working on, it's more like validation tests from the agronomic trials, so stuff that has been underway now for years, and it's to do with granulation. We have further tests going on with microbes. We're always looking for different microbes. We've done some application to register new microbes. Those are underway. And we have several patents which we've applied, that we're waiting for. I think we probably have about five different patents that we applied for. Next question: Are there still plans to list on another stock market to gain interest?
Given geopolitical tensions, is there a case for a listing in a major exchange outside of America, somewhere more neutral, such as where the company has been moved to Singapore? The stock exchange in Singapore isn't great, to say the least. Spoken to several people there, and liquidity is low, the market's small, so I don't see much merit with the listing in Singapore. The U.S. market is no doubt your premier stock exchange recently. There are two ways to access that, to make it easier for U.S. investors to potentially buy shares. One is via a NASDAQ or New York Stock Exchange listing. The other one is via a OTC listing. Not the one we currently have, because it doesn't seem to offer much access.
It would be something on a different range of within or with a different category within OTC, which seems to be able to o ffer access to more investors. So if there's any more question. So now, this concludes all the questions we've received. If anyone is thinking about sending a follow-up question or sending a question, now is your time. While I give you a couple of minutes, let me just say that I feel very frustrated about what's going on in the market. I feel very sad that the market turned on us the way it did. I feel impotent. We couldn't really forecast how quick it would change on us, and we're doing the best.
We're doing the best we can in order to address all of that. It's not our first time. I remember going through a situation or situations very similar to the current one back even before the company went public in 2006, when we were very close to not be able to go public or carry on as a company. That was back in 2006. Very bad situation. Then, obviously, there was an equally distressing situation when we had the subprime crisis in 2007 - in 2008, 2009. So that was very challenging for the company, what to do, what was going on. Very difficult time.
Then we again had something very similar happening in 2013, when the industry exploded, when the potash space exploded, when the Russians fought with the Belarusians, and the price all of a suddenly crashed from $400, $500 down to $200. So that was very, very bad. Then in 2016, when our treasury was very low, when we had to somehow find funds to build our first plant, that was equally very, very difficult time. Then once we started production from 2017, we also faced some massive problems. I think it was around 2019 or something like that, with the issue of potash prices again. Of course, then there was COVID, where we had to reinvent the way we would be selling.
So I think what we see now with this collapse, absolute collapse of potash prices, with the collapse we're seeing with the price for agricultural commodities, and the fact we now have a sizable debt, is yet another challenge we're facing in our history of nearly 20 years. And it's something we're working as hard as we can, learning as much as we can from everyone, from there is to be learning from. I appreciate some of those questions here. They made me think, so I'm sure it equally made Felipe think about some of our previous conversations as well. So I appreciate all the effort. I appreciate your this partnership, appreciate your input. Please do never hesitate to send us a question, to send us a suggestion, just to criticize us.
We're in this boat together, and we're working as best as we possibly can to go through this difficult time. Having said that, seeing there are no other questions here, I would like to thank you for this opportunity to talk about Verde AgriTech. If you're watching it online, please do not hesitate to share it with other people who might be interested, and we look forward to talking to you very soon. Thank you very much. Have a great day. Bye-bye.