Verde AgriTech Limited (NPK) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hi, everyone. My name is Cristiano Veloso. I'm the Founder and CEO of Verde AgriTech Plc. I thank you all very much for attending this questions-and-answers session. If you are attending this event live, I thank you, and we'll explain how it will work today. Every one of you, at the bottom of the screen, there is a Q&A button. You can type in, you can click and type in any questions you may have. We have received several questions over the last few days. And Isabella has very gently compiled the list with all those questions, and she is right now adding all of those questions to the Q&A box. You will be able to vote for the questions you want to be answered first. And as you vote, this question will move up in the order of priorities. That way, if your time is short, I will be able to answer your questions sooner. And for the other questions, we can stay a bit longer during this call. For everyone watching this video on YouTube, thank you very much for the interest. If you like this presentation, the other material you've seen in our channel, please subscribe to our channel so you can get the updates as soon as a video, a new video becomes available in our YouTube channel. Also, please make sure you share any video you like with the other people who might be interested in joining our journey. Before we begin answering the questions, as usual, I will ask you all to hold a minute of silence, thinking about all the ones we've lost during this terrific pandemic. And thanks for doing that. Thank you. Recently, someone asked me, one investor, why I do that in the beginning of every call. And my answer is, it has been a very -- we've had some very happy days at Verde, with the growth with everything we want to achieve. And of course, it's natural to be excited in this video. But by holding this 1-minute silence at the beginning of the call, it's just a way to acknowledge the suffering so many of us who have lost people very close to us and other people where and anyone who was drastically impacted by this pandemic is coping with it.

So starting now with the questions. The first question is, has revenue from BAKS been assumed in the 2021 guidance? If so, how much? The answer is yes. We've assumed in our guidance for 2021, some revenue for BAKS. How much? We are not in a position to disclose what percentage of our 2021 expected sales would come from selling BAKS. The other question is what will the price per tonne for BAKS be? Very good question. And of course, the answer will depend on the composition of the product. So some farmers might want to have a higher concentration of boron than some other farmers who might have a higher concentration of sulfur, for example. So depending on the concentration of the nutrient, we will have different prices per tonne. The pricing mechanism, though, doesn't change. So we still sell the product. So it is delivered and applied to soils in a competitive manner to the equivalent fertilizers. So we're still sticking to what we've said all along that by -- that when a Brazilian farmer switches from conventional chemical fertilizer to BAKS, there isn't an increase in the cost. The contrary is more often true, especially with the addition of sulfur, they will be able to reduce costs. The other question -- just remove the ones answered. So the other question we have here is, there are many blenders in Brazil who are mixing fertilizers for farmers. What differentiates you from them apart from the fact that you have glauconite? And if that's the answer, that's fine. It's a good question. So what differentiates us from them in a negative way is the fact we sell product as a powder, as a dust, and blenders will sell fertilizers as granules. And a lot of farmers for different reasons, they still prefer to buy granulated fertilizers. What differentiates us positively from blenders is that we can be much more cost efficient when we include certain nutrients to our product. So for example, sulfur, if a blender wants to add sulfur to a certain NPK blend, they will have to rely on sources of sulfur such as super simple phosphates, ammonium sulfate, which are way more expensive to them as blenders and especially to the farmers than the source of sulfur we can procure. So the advantage and disadvantage, that would be the short answer. The other question is, what's the total cost on average of production of BAKS? And what is the expected added value revenue? Again, it's a very different -- it's a difficult question to answer because it depends on the composition. But to illustrate one of the compositions we're selling the most would be to add 2% of sulfur and 0.2% of boron. So when we add those nutrients to our product, in terms of industrial added cost, it's irrelevant. The added industrial cost, absolutely relevant. What is relevant is the cost for you to procure those nutrients. And the cost, for example, of elemental sulfur, and the price we can sell it on to the farmers, we can be looking at a margin between 20% to up to 40% on that sulfur. When you look at boron, and you look at the cost we can procure, get the delivery to the plant and the cost we're able to sell its on, the margin's a bit smaller. You're looking at around 15%. So if any of those questions, if you feel like I didn't answer them completely, please make sure you go down and either ask the same question again or perhaps try to stress whichever point you thought I didn't address. The next question -- and we have 40 questions, if you're watching it on YouTube so far. The next question is how closely is Verde working with Minas Gerais, state and the federal government to help maximize its chances of becoming a key provider of fertilizer products to Brazilian farmers? What else needs to happen before Verde can wield some true influence and become a significant player? That's a very good question. We're working closely with both state and federal governments. They've been aware of everything we're doing. They've been providing as much support as they legally can all along our journey. And I'm pretty confident they will continue doing so. I think the last environmental license we got issued for 2.5 million tonnes, which was applied for in March 2020 and was issued in December 2020, I think it helped to illustrate how committed everyone in the country is to see the succeeding. What else needs to happen before can -- Verde can wield some true influence and become a significant player? I think the answer then to the second question is, we need to deliver. We need to carry on executing. We need to carry on growing our market share. We need to carry on making sure farmers understand the benefits of our product. And the recent -- with those things, it's not about magic. It's about hard work, how the everyday work and that's what and where we are truly focused on. Brazil Potash project is recognized by the government is 1 of 8 projects of national import. Is there any chance of yours being recognized as such? So when? This is a mention to some projects that have an enormous capital expenditure, projects that have a gigantic environmental impact and projects that are suffering a lot of problems with communities, a lot of problems with feasibility. And the government has created something like that, which let's hope it will help them all. Our project and how we've been developing it, the relationships we already have and how things are progressing, just hasn't been necessary. Is it just that you're going to be adding sulfur to K Forte in accordance with how much each farmer wishes you to? Or is there some proprietary science here, which justifies the technological badge you wish to put on the business? The short answer is, yes. We've applied for patents. And the technology came up after several discussions between me and some of our teams, some of the consultant scientists who consulted for Verde at some point, some industrial people and to illustrate how there is IP on what we've done. Some of the contractors who are paid to go and build what we designed, after they executed the work, after they were paid, they turned to us and said, well, we really never thought it would work. We would give back as much money as you wanted, that what you wanted to do wouldn't be possible to be accomplished. So we are happy about how it's being -- how those technology is being developed and the added value it will bring to Verde as it grows. With 2.5 million tonnes to ship each year, how are you going to get 50,000 trucks in and out of your mines to the plots? And then to the customers each year, we need to start getting an understanding of the logistics here. Yes, we've done the logistical studies. And it's a big number when you look at it. But when you look at the number of vehicles per unit of time, when you look at other operations in the state, which move up to 10 million tonnes, 10 million tonnes of, for example, iron ore. It's not something very different we're proposing here. We believe that up to a number of around 10 million tonnes, we should be able to sell it by truck. Above that number, then you start getting a greater impact on roads, and you will have to look -- we will have to look at setting up a rail connection. Of course, for -- there will be CapEx required in terms of improving a road of approximately 20 kilometers that goes from where the plant is right now to where the mine site is. So that is an improvement we will need to be doing, and it's accounted for, for example, in our green feasibility study. You mentioned the market in dollars for sulfur in the world, but how big is the market in Brazil? It's big. The number will be available in our prefeasibility study much later on this year or perhaps we might even do something we've done in the past, which is to do a press release with the market study once it's completed by an independent party, we don't know yet. But sulfur is the most strategic nutrient in Brazil as far as offering an edge in terms of market development is concerned, for any product for the reasons I explained in the technology launch video. And if anyone wants me to go into detail again for the reasons, please make sure that you ask a question here, and I will address that as well. In light of the development of the new product offer of BAKS, what is your new production guidance? It remains unchanged. It's what was disclosed. What's the expected production for 2022? I don't know. We know what we expect to do in 2021, as it was disclosed. I think we -- let's see how the first half of the year goes before we start making guidance or projections for 2022. One point [ auto ] and anyone watching our video on YouTube, and it's -- I just had a call right before this one with one of the companies we're talking to you about in the market study, and we're talking about market share. And I was telling them something that for us in Verde is part of who we are. When we look at the size of ore mine, when we look at the benefits the project has for the planet, for everyone's health, for the farmers, for the farmers' bottom line, we have the obligation to sell as much of that mineral as fast as we can. The consultant was talking about my ambition when I was talking to him about 6% to 8% of the market share, and I had to correct him twice. Ambition is when you have a gold iron ore business or any other sort of business and you want to grow, you want to have a bigger market share because you want to be bigger for different reasons. In the case with Verde, it's different. We have the obligation. And if we aren't good enough as a company, as a team to do that and to grow it and to maximize as much as we can from that mineral assets for the benefits of the planet and Brazil and the farmers, we aren't fast enough to do that. We should get out of the way and find someone else who can grow it as fast as it has to be grown. It's an obligation. It's not optional. It's not an ambition. And that's how we work -- and that's how we've been working every day. As people say, Rome wasn't built in a day, and we acknowledge that. It's a new product, has all the challenge, but that doesn't change what we all recognize as being our obligation. Next question. How is the structure of your loans? What is the percentage of your loans that are associated with IPCA? There is a table in our management's discussion and analysis filed on SEDAR, also available in our website, where there is a breakdown with each one of the different loans we have and the terms for each one of them and what the ones which are associated with IPCA. So refer you to that material, which is updated quarterly. Next question. Please can you confirm that you're currently permitted to mine 480,000 tonnes of [ pay ] in 2021, plus 120,000 tonnes unused from 2020? I confirm the 480,000 tonnes, which is what is on the [indiscernible] The amount which was brought in from 2020 to 2021 wasn't as great as the 120,000 tonnes. I think, by memory, and please forgive me if I'm wrong, I think it's about 25,000, 30,000 tonnes. But what we can do is to add a line on the monthly update for January disclosing that, but it isn't something material. How are such large amounts of unrefined elemental sulfur to be obtained, trucked and then amalgamated without impacting margins? All of the economics and logistics of this new product rollout are unclear. Unrefined elemental sulfur comes from oil refineries. That's the main and cheapest source of unrefined elemental sulfur. Some companies in Brazil, they import and refine elemental sulfur from the Gulf, Saudi Arabia. And some companies in Brazil, depending on where they are, if they have an oil refinery nearby, they source it locally. In the case of Verde, we are lucky that there is an oil refinery about 300 kilometers away from where the project is. It's called Refineria Gabriel Passos, just outside Belo Horizonte, where we're all from, and it's owned by Petrobras, and that's where we are sourcing it from. The pricing, though Petrobras charges, is in line with international sulfur prices -- international elemental sulfur prices. The edge we have is that the competition, the other sources of sulfur, of fertilizer with sulfur, their technologies do not allow them to process it and incorporate it to the product as cost efficiently as we do. So they operate with -- from much greater costs than we have. And that's how we can achieve the margins I referred not long ago, anything between 30%, depending on time, way up to 50%. Okay, let me -- this question. So the other question, how much capability has Verde got in the technology area? And how much needs to be farmed out to labs? How scientific do you need to be? Or is it just a question of responding to each farmers' demands? It's a very good question, and I presume you're talking about the final product composition. The -- if that was what you're referring to, which I think so, the answer for your first question is that we have a lot of internal capability in terms of human resource, in terms of PhDs and experts in agriculture. How much needs to be farmed out to labs? It's commodity type of work. So for example, doing a soil analysis, doing a -- certain types of assays, which anyone can do, it's just a commodity we do that with external labs. How scientific they should be, just a question. I think that is a brilliant question, the second one. And it's how we can demonstrate the value our product can generate to farmers. And one of the things I'm so happy about this, if you can say that about this crisis, the job we did, the 1-minute silence, is that it taught us how effectively an organization can be relying on its people working remotely, providing you have the right tools to find and hire the sort of people that thrive working remotely. Not everyone is like that. Some people do -- will always need this social atmosphere of an office. And -- but not -- but people are different. And we like to be able to target that. We've been lucky that this allowed us to significantly grow the area where we could recruit people from in Brazil. So we've brought some amazing human talent, PhDs, people with a wide array of experience from different commodities. And this is, again, and will be seen, I can bat one of the reasons we will carry on succeeding as we grow. The next question. It may be useful for you to say a few words on what a great year Brazilian farmers had in 2020? How this normally leads to more investments into their farms and the outlook for potash prices in 2021? Yes, farmers made a lot of money. It's a lot of money. Soy beans, all the agricultural commodities have been at fantastic prices. Coffee, cotton, corn. And on the top of that, the Brazilian currency has weakened significantly. So they sell in strong currency and pay most of their costs in Brazilian reals. So there will be quite a few new plants sold in Brazil for farmers. Yes, farmers are passionate of what they do. They love buying more land, they love investing more, they love growing the planted area, they love buying more equipment. So we can see that in terms of pretty much every farmer talking about how they are looking to expand the planted areas. And in terms of outlook for potash price in 2021, there is some conversation about people asking as much as $260 CFR for potash. There hasn't been much liquidity in that price as far as we're aware, but that would be about 10%, more than 10% growth on prices realized at the end of last year, which were around $220. Some people talking about potash prices going back to the $300s, to the $400s, and I don't know what's going to happen. I don't think that will happen. I think this is what we're going to be seeing, around $260, $250 thereabouts, I don't think the players who control potash supply, I don't think they will want to incentivize added production coming from other conventional mines. And of course, you have BHP, which has this gigantic project in Canada. And every time BHP talks about effectively commissioning it or going forward with it, the price comes down and the current players talk about how much capacity they do have and how there is no need. And so we're going to -- we'll see. Next question. We have 32 questions -- or another 32 questions, anyone watching it on YouTube. So if your average debtor is going to take a year to pay, you're going to... This isn't true. So the average debtor doesn't take a year to pay. We can perhaps start putting that down in the management monthly management report, but it's -- the average, it's about 3 months, 2, 3 months. You're going to try to need some very significant facilities, you're going to need more capital. Well, if you look on our management document, you'll see that we have already a line, which is about BRL 20 million, significant amount of money, to fund farmers that want to have a larger amount of time to pay us, and we hardly use that money. I think out of the BRL 20 million, we use like BRL 100,000 just test how it would work, or -- so we haven't needed that. But yes, as we grow, there will be the additional need for more capital, but we've been very good with the relationship with the banks and other financial institutions in Brazil to back us as far as that is concerned. So how are you going to pay for your new plant in H2 next year with all this working capital tied up in debtors? We are having those conversations. We're looking at the funding package. Of course, we will be generating more sales this year, more cash flow. So when we come in a press release, the CapEx for the new plant and the more final time frame, we will be press releasing the financial package which was required. But one thing is that we won't need to raise any new equity. We're confident that everything can be done out of accumulated cash flow plus additional debt. What are your plans regarding Verde's sales team ramp up? We are hiring as fast as we can, as many people as we can, and as good people as we can, as we can find. And we'll carry on doing that. One the books I read over New Year's, Christmas is From Good To Great, (sic) [ Good To Great], fantastic book. It's not a very new book, but still great. And one thing -- one sentence there, which gets repeated often is, you need to get the right people on the bus. You need to get the wrong people off the bus. You need to get the right people in the bus on the right seat. So that's what we carry on doing. And as Jack Welch also likes to say, he has never regretted firing someone too quick. So we have some principles in Verde  which we care a lot about, very important, not what we're doing. We are very committed to having the greatest level of talent of any agritech company in the country. So we do make sure we are hiring the best, and we're trying to keep only the best in the company. We deeply agree that when you have a team, your team will be just as good as the worst person you have in your team. So we make sure we follow Jack Welch and others, and we fired people as fast as we can. And also the other thing we do in Verde, we don't steal anyone's time. So if we feel that someone isn't good enough for the company, for what we're trying to achieve, we fire the persons straight away. So the person can find another company where he can be happy. So that's Verde. [indiscernible] another question, what is the biggest challenge to growth in the production? Sales, bureaucracy, technical issues, logistics? It's all of the above. People, is -- true reason, we've been able to grow at the pace we've been growing, around 100%. But our growth has been so fast that you need to change the company every 2, 3 months in terms of internal procedures, they keep changing. You keep adding a layer of complexity, you need to start changing how you do the segmentation of your customer service. So it's all this growth, which is our -- which is a good challenge and it is our challenge. Another great book about that is by the co-founder of Linkedin, It's called Blitzscaling, which helps to -- which really illustrates what we're going through. And more importantly, it helps with a road map on what you should be doing, what you should have been doing to succeed in a situation like that. There are the questions. The other question is, have you got any preorders already from customers for BAKS? Yes, we have preorders. And yes, we've already shipped. We've already dispatched. We already have BAKS being used by some of our customers who took delivery of the product already in 2021. How much BAKS will you be able to produce at your facilities at their completed ship date? Well, we could essentially have 100% of our production as max, if there is demand. Is there a process where Verde could change its product from powder form to granular? Yes, there is a process. We have invested in that process over the years. We control it. We've improved it significantly. It's another technology we've developed. If you are in the United States or Canada, you can actually go on Amazon and buy our product as granulated. And for the local -- for the Brazilian market, at the moment, we are focused on powdered. And-- but in -- at some point in the future, we will also be offering granulated products to the local market. What percentage of total sales is BAKS estimated? We won't be disclosing this at the moment. What are your sales? We won't be disclosing that at the moment. Can you please provide an explanation as to why you decided to change auditors mid-year after having received shareholder approval at the AGM? We changed auditors because they were just as good as the ones we previously had, and they were more cost efficient than the ones we were using. And they were -- actually PKF, they were the auditors we first used in 2007, when we went public. The second part of the question is why did you change midyear? We changed auditors when it got to the point when we've historically always engaged auditors. So historically, talking since we went public in 2007, every November, we would get a quote from the auditors. We would have a planning call with the auditors. And we would try to argue for discounts and fees, and we would go forward. When it came to this year, we had a few quotes from several different auditors for the year, which is to be audited for 2020. Our calendar year ends -- our fiscal year is this calendar year, so ends in December, and we changed auditors when it was the time we usually would hire them. I think that would be the answer. In 3 years' time, what's your guess about Verde's sales will be split pure K Forte and new products? Well, because it's a guess, I think in 3 years, up to 90% is going to be BAKS. How long is it going to take for the average farmer in Brazil to buy into our story and do away with KCl? Or do you believe that many will remain loyal to what they know? So 2 questions. So how long is it going to take for the average farmer in Brazil to buy into our story and do away with KCl? It depends. I mean, it depends. We've had -- we have farmers who switched straight away, and they're very happy. We have farmers who tried it for 2, 3 years before they switched completely. So it varies a lot. So I don't have an answer to this question. What I should say though, is, don't take farmers for granted, never take farmers for granted. It's not because they bought your product 1 year, that follow year, he won't go back to KCl. We saw that happening unlike for reasons as silly as Verde failing to call the guy back and reasons as silly as the farmer's son-in-law working for a different fertilizer company and selling him KCl or distributor packaging up a bunch of products and offering a very competitive rate on KCL, on potassium chloride, but making up the money in other products. So it's going to be every year, the same fight, the same challenge as if it was the first time he was deciding whether to buy for K Forte or not. At least that's how I like to see it, that's how I like to communicate with our sales team. But yes, of course, if the farmer has used it, and he's happy, it's a bit easier than offering a brand-new product. Is it possible that the government will help push farmers towards your products? No, no. I mean that's just -- it's not what the governments do. That's not what any serious government should be doing, pushing a product to telling a farmer to use A, B or C. It's not how it works. It will provide a competitive environment for the products in the marketplace. Doesn't matter if it's imported or if it's national, it will provide a fair market environment, and it will be down to the companies to convince the farmers to demonstrate the benefits. It will be down to the farmers to decide what they will use. Why was there no real substance to the technology presentation of December 2015, and no opportunity to ask questions? I feel sorry you felt there was no substance to the technology presentation. We did our best. I hope if there's any specific question about technology, you may ask the questions, we are happy to answer. No opportunity to ask questions was because it would be a bit challenging to do that from my sugarcane field, and we thought the technology deserved a real site location rather than myself in Zoom talking about it. We thought it would be a bit more interesting and the technology deserved it. But as always, we're happy to answer any questions and address any points to the best of our capability. How are you going to develop your sales channels so that investors can start to see your potential? At the moment, the market doesn't believe you're going to get to 1 million tonnes of sales per annum, never mind the 25 million tonnes. This disconnect needs to be addressed. I think that's the $2 billion question, $2 billion being our NPV. So if any of you on this call, or in fair view can help us figuring it out, how we can improve our communication. So this disconnect is addressed, please share your thoughts. We will listen to all of them. And in the meantime, until there is something that we would, having said, we are going to carry on doing our hard day-to-day work of talking to farmers and helping them to grow food, more sustainable, more cost efficiently and with as much passion for their farming activities we have for what we are trying to accomplish at Verde. What pressures are there on logistics at 250,000 tonnes per annum? Minor, minor pressure. That's what we moved last year. I think there are about -- next question, can you make Verde less dependent on Q3? Or are the rains in the times the farmers apply their fertilizer always going to make this the dominant quarter? The answer to the second part of the question is, yes, rains and the timing for fertilizer application, when you look at 2 of the -- or most of the systems -- the agricultural systems, the crops, which require more fertilizers collectively, Q3 is always going to be the dominant quarter, no doubt. The answer to the first question, is also, yes, to the first part of the question. So yes, we can make Verde less dependent. And how are we doing it? We've identified a secret with certain crops, which would have a greater demand in -- especially Q1, late Q4. And we've been doing trials and market development with some very large players in those sectors, which if successful, we would hope to be able to change the dynamic slightly on -- as far as increasing demand in the first part of the year. How much could 1 large farmer who really liked your products order from you each year? A lot, a lot. If you think about the company that controls the greatest planted area in Brazil, that company alone could be buying about, both for its own land and for people contracted by this company, they could be buying alone, about 800,000 tonnes per year of our product. 800,000 tonnes would be the number. Your ultimate target is 25 million tonnes per annum. Well, the current prefeasibility study has a target of 25 million tonnes per annum. I invite everyone to watch the presentation, Technology Launch, where I talk about a new prefeasibility study should be developed this year, where we will be looking at the potential for addressing a much greater market share. Thanks to -- especially thanks to sulfur. Don't know if we'll succeed. But if we do, it would be a greater number here. How many years is it going to take for you to reach that target? I don't know. I really don't know. Will the new feasibility study mean you have to go back to square one with the regulators? If it's a question about the Brazilian regulators, the answer is no. If it's a question about the securities regulators, the answer is no. So I'm not sure if I understand this question correctly. I hope I addressed it. It is wonderful to hint that the NPV may be more than $2 million. But this needs to be backed up with substance. Agree? And I think the substance is we keep growing. We keep improving as a team, as a company. We keep acknowledging our mistakes and finding ways to get better. We keep innovating when we see there is some hard ultra-market development. We keep trying to communicate better with the market. We appreciate all feedbacks. At the end of every one of those calls, we always circulate a link for people to give feedbacks. And I will share something here with you. The reason I will enjoy so much those calls. One of the reasons is because I learn a lot. A lot of it gets me thinking. And I fully acknowledge how successful, how smart a lot of our investors are, how smart lots of the people who are following the company are and how much we can learn from them. From you, who are watching YouTube right now. So every question you ask is an opportunity for us to improve. So please always make sure you are as blunt as you wish when you're asking questions and giving us feedback. Can you please provide an update on the 21st as to how many of the March 2021 warrants have been exercised by holders to date? It would be a material disclosure, we're not allowed to do that. So unfortunately, I cannot. Can you please address the reason for the change in auditors previously appointed by the shareholders? I understand you requested the current auditor to step down, which they did without raising issues. Provided Their voluntaries initially after which was duly filed on SEDAR. Why did you believe this midyear change was helpful to the company to reduce costs? And the midyear is the second time someone talked about the midyear. The way we see it is it wasn't the big year. It wasn't the -- I understand why you're saying midyear, but it was the time the company had forever negotiated with the auditors for the following work. What is the plan or campaign for the 2021 warrants? What's your wishes off for them? Your plans on taking them up, the fact that there are only 10 investors involved in this and what they need to do to take them up. I have 0 plans. I have given 0 thoughts. I've been and we've been really focused on the company. I will let each one of them make up their mind on their own. And we're going to carry on doing our job. Would you release the sales number for Q4 2020 so that investors have some knowledge about whether they should take up the warrants or not? I don't know. I can bring this up to the Board of Directors, discuss it internally to see if this is something that would make sense, considering it would be before when we would usually file. So at this point, the answer would be no. But quite frankly, anyone who is deciding whether or not to exercise those warrants based on Q4 results, perhaps shouldn't be exercising those warrants, perhaps should go and buy Nutrien or Mosaic or an established business because I think we need to focus here really on the long term. And that's how we run the company. You're advertising for a lot of new staff. What is your current staffing levels? Where are the shortfalls? And what number of employees are you aiming at? Lots of good questions here. At the moment, we have about 100 employees. The shortfall we have at the moment is mainly sales. And the number of employees we're aiming at for 2021, the end of 2021 would be to have about 120 employees. Some of the ads, they are duplicated because sometimes people apply for 1 position. And we can really use the person that often applies for this 1 position, doing something else, for example: Some of the best people we have in our sales team, they had actually applied for a position in agronomic research. We had about 2,000 people applying for agronomic research positions we have over the last few months. Those 3,000 people, they had to fill out a full comprehensive personality assessment, emotional intelligence, intelligence, motivations and pretty good system. And we can use the sort of personality profile we know good salespeople usually have. We can use that sort of profile to match and to scan on the people applying for research positions and then we can bring them. And we had some feedback of some of people we hired turning to us and say, you guys believed more on what I could do than I ever knew I was capable doing. And that's not -- it's just science, it's just data analysis, just that fish intelligence working to help us build this team. Jeff, given the bespoke blending, it sounds like you're now offering farmers with BAKS. Will it be feasible to stockpile? Or will it be just in time? We do some stockpiling, yes, because even though we talk about bespoke, the sort of product compositions for most crops, it doesn't vary that much the way we came up with the science and the way we can show to farmers how to get the best yields. So we can narrow the range of products or what we can show to them as being the better solution for their farms. If you want -- if you were to guess, how many different BAKS plans so you think will be requested by the market? There is only, by a very -- the study we did, and by the study is also how we market when we approach what we try to sell, we are looking for this year to be selling about 10 different types of products. Isabella, just before I forget, let's put at the bottom of the YouTube video, a link to the Kiss the Ground documentary, some people might be watching the video for the first time. It's a Netflix documentary. I strongly recommend everyone to watch. And let's also post the link to the very recently issued United Nations paper on the importance of soil biodiversity to the world. I think those are 2 important documents everyone who's vaguely interested in what we're doing will enjoy reading about. And as Isabella just said, the link is also on our monthly newsletter, which by now, I hope everyone is -- has already subscribed to it. If you haven't yet, there is a QR code right next to me on the screen, you can point your phone to it as if you were going to take a photo and it will prompt you straight to your browser and to the link and to the website where you can register and receive our updates. John [ Kaisa ]. I hope you're well, John. I hope everything is good and sound in California. And I trust you're pretty happy with you with the new [indiscernible]. Your website is a usability disaster, with way too many decorative graphics and not enough information. It also serves Portuguese pop-ups and blends Portuguese content with English content. What are you willing to do to make it more effective for people researching your story? And I completely agree, John. The website was done thinking exclusively for Brazilian farmers. We started trying to fix it last year when we developed a new Investor Relations website. So investor.verde.ag is the new Investor Relations website, which has financials, has all the information, filing and some other information. But what we will be doing next is working on the English version of our website. So it focused on telling investors more and giving people the real reasons why they should be investing in the company or they should be aware of the company rather than why they should personally be buying fertilizers. So this is something to be done. And you should see that at some point this year, hopefully sooner rather than later. Jeff. Or, as you openly admitted in your last monthly letter, you lost repeat sales due to a less than ideal CRM system. What have you done to remedy this? We're doing it, we carried out a detailed audit on all the reasons we lost sales last year. We've compiled them all. And we've been working on each one of those root causes to make sure they don't happen. And I am optimistic that this will not repeat this year. We should never expect, as I said, that a farmer will just remain a lifer in terms of buying the product just for the sake of it. I can't take that for granted. And what the system should be able to do is to allow us to monitor and follow process on this relationship to make sure we are there for the farmer when they need it, and we can manage it proactively. So he places the order with us at the moment he usually intends to purchase an order rather than with the first sales person who knocks on one's door. So that's what we're doing. The other point, which I think is important to mention is the repurchase indexed for companies in the agricultural space is often small, because most times they're dealing with commodities and other nutrients that they have to buy anyway. So some of it -- sometimes it's convenient, sometimes it's financing, sometimes it's a relationship. So I don't know how much better it will be this year. What I will not accept is to lose a sale because we failed in doing something. [ Magnus ] is asking, wouldn't it be good to put out a press release for things such as BAKS intro and $2.5 million environmental license? I think that would draw more attention to the company and make the knowledge of your products and technologies spread faster. There are a lot of people who aren't active on stock chats and/or subscribe to your monthly newsletters. The feedback, [ Magnus ], we will definitely keep that one in mind for the next events. I agree with what you said. What will it sell for? And how much will the estimated profit be per metric tonne? I think that question was probably together with the other questions about BAKS, which we addressed before. When using 1,000 tonnes of your feedstock to mix BAKS, how much does your BAKS weigh? What is the weight of the components you add to make BAKS? So farmers always look at percentage. So you're buying a fertilizer, you're looking at, for example, 3% nitrogen, 10% phosphate, 15% potash. So you're always looking at, if I understood correctly the question, you're always looking at 1,000 tonnes, a percentage of -- on 1,000 tonnes. So I think -- I didn't understand this question. So who ever asked, you could rephrase it, I think it's better than me trying to say nonsense and embarrass myself. How was the BAKS product developed? Several years, talking to hundreds of farmers discussed with several consultants, testing different engineering solutions, all done internally. So that's how it was developed, lots of tests, trial, errors, that's it. Was BAKS in direct response to customer feedback? Or is it a Verde initiative? That's a good question. That's a very good question. Very good question. It was a Verde initiative. It was a Verde initiative, which came from its perception or its knowledge of how sulfur is for farmers and how much they overpay on nutrients when they buy conventional NPK blends. So by realizing that, which the vast majority of farmers just don't realize because you need to drill down into the mechanics of blending different raw materials, and that's not something they need to understand, that we saw we had to do something about sulfur. And then we went to look at what could be done, testing different alternatives, the most cost-efficient alternative was elemental sulfur, which is a complex material for you to industrialize. So we had to test and it worked. We have to come up with some innovative solutions for some problems with people and we see we would have. So that's a bit of the story about it. And then, of course, once we had it figured out, in parallel to having it figured out, we were direct communication with farmers. And in that direction -- direct communication, we work with farmers, it -- we saw we were on the right path. The perception they had, though, was it an economic problem they had with sulfur, they had more technical and efficiency problem with the source of sulfur they were using. And we managed to resolve both. So we managed to resolve something economic, more economic than what they were using, most of them are currently using, and that also improves in terms of efficiency, and that is why we're so excited about BAKS. Do you have any comments on the recent Nobel Prize nomination? That was very exciting. The big congratulations to Alysson Paolinelli. So if there's any justice in this world, our Director, Alysson Paolinelli, should be receiving the Nobel Peace Prize this year. The man has done more than anyone living on earth to help saving the environment, saving the planet and feeding us, feeding this population. No one has done as much as he has. If the science he came up with back in the late 60s, if all the programs he implemented back in the early 70s to develop this massive land called Cerrado into agricultural land, if that work hadn't been done by him as effectively and as smart as he was able to do, we wouldn't have anywhere else in the world capable of producing as much food as it is required and in such a sustainable way without the need for deforestation as we were able to accomplish, thanks to Alysson Paolinelli. So he truly deserves that. He has already been given a World Food Prize. The gentleman who appointed him and gave him is Norman Borlaug, who himself won a Nobel prize. And in the ceremony, himself several years ago already expressed to the world, how the world had to be looking at Alysson Paolinelli, not just as one who should be given a World Food Prize, but most certainly one that deserves, as much as anyone else who have ever been given one, and more than several other ones, a Nobel Peace prize. One of the advantages of Verde's current product is that it's slow release. Given that BAKS is a dust rather than granular, does this make run-off and leaching more likely with BAKS compared to the competing products that you see are granular. George, the answer is no. because it isn't water soluble, and the other products are all water soluble. And what causes really this leaching is not the runoff. It's how it infiltrates into the soil and goes deep, but now in the soil two layers and that's where the roots can no longer take the nutrients. The other question, we need to know how much traction you're gaining with some of the larger farmers? If you take 900 farmers in total sales of, say, $15 million, that doesn't give a huge average sale per farm. That's true. But bear in mind that some of those farmers, very large farmers, they're buying small amounts. Yesterday, we had a group, a conglomerate that can buy on its own, as much as 40,000 tonnes of BAKS per year, buying 75 tonnes of product. In the first part of your question, I think it would be a bit complicated to start sharing like percentage depending on acreage size, I think it just gets a bit complicated. We need to be a bit careful on not distracting too much our team from selling and find better ways to sell and trying to communicate every detail and every stats on what we're doing. What's the guidance for 2021 in tonnes and revenue? It's BRL 50 million. And in tonnes, I think that accounts for above 300,000, 350,000 tonnes. But it should be on the press release and in the monthly documents we disclosed. James is asking, are you planning on selling product in Canada? There is a growing market in marijuana production. We sell our product in Canada. The company that sells it there for us is a company called Gaia Green, owned by a Vancouver group, was founded by a very interesting gentleman, who is one of the pioneers in organic cultivation and understands a lot about cannabis cultivation as well. The company -- his company began apparently in one of the most favorable part of Canada to cultivate cannabis as was found out back in the '80s around when the current company began. So if you're in Canada, Gaia Green, you will be buying our product. We have 2 more questions to go. We had 51 people watching our presentation live. If anyone wants to come up with another question, now is probably the time. So the other question is, who keeps -- the children just came in now, who keeps your hair so neatly cut during the COVID pandemic? My wife. She uses some handheld stuff or barber's operating. Who is going to come up with this soil analysis for each farm? Is this another potential Verde-added service, which could be done on an annual basis? No. Farmers already do their soil analysis. They've already been doing soil analysis forever. And is this another potential Verde-added service? No, it's a commodity. Too many companies doing it. There's no interest in doing soil analysis for farmers. So that completes our questions today. I thank you very much for attending this questions-and-analysis session. If you're watching it on YouTube, please make sure you subscribe to our channel. Please make sure you share, if you liked it with other people who may also be interested in joining our story. So thanks a lot. I hope you all have an excellent rest of your day and hope to see you soon. Bye-bye.