• Producers and businesspersons of the agricultural sector made their first export of double compressed alfalfa, a product designed to facilitate logistics and attain lower transportation costs.
• Grupo Exportador AlfaSud (AlfaSud: Export Group) was established in late 2017 with the assistance of ProCórdoba Agency
• The group's goal is to become competitive in the international market and generate added value.

ALFASUD was born at the end of 2017, as a result of work conducted under the Export Groups Program run by the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Mining's ProCórdoba Agency. It comprises seven agricultural producers — four from the city of Hernando, one from Río Cuarto, one from Dalmacio Vélez and one from the Capital City — who came together to form a company focused on bringing their alfalfa, and other products, to international markets.

Although some of the member firms were already selling alfalfa rolls and bales in the domestic market, none had any export experience. When they decided to reach foreign markets, it became necessary to introduce changes to their product, increase its quality, innovate and generate added value.

Jorge Mansilla, coordinator and one of the members of the group, explains, "Improving transportation costs was one of the main hurdles to overcome. Transportation is indeed a common challenge to all producers based in the interior of the country, especially with high volume merchandise, given its weight. It is difficult to reach the ports and still be able to offer competitive prices for foreign markets. That is why we spend several months studying and planning the best differentiation strategy. We defined our product, but in order to actually make it, we had to design a compressing machine and then then have the machine actually manufactured. We had to transform the bales into something different, a product with an export profile."

Thus, the group partnered strategically with Industria Metalúrgica Gentili, from Tancacha, who manufactured a special press to double-compress alfalfa bales, managing to reduce them to half their traditional size. The bale, in its new format, retains the same weight (approximately 23 kg), but facilitates stowage and handling, reduces storage space, strongly lowers transportation costs and improves competitiveness. To illustrate this, simply consider that a 40-foot container holds about 480 traditional bales, wheres it can store more than 1000 AlfaSud bales.

Another fundamental element of this innovation is that protects the product's nutritional quality, with a special wrapping that minimizes leaf loss and shields it from humidity. All these characteristics generate a 35% to 40% added value.

"The best aspect of the work done with the support of ProCórdoba and the Municipality of Hernando is that we managed to define a new product," underscored Mansilla. "In addition, the Government of Córdoba invited us to participate in the farmer's tent at AgroActiva (a major fair in Argentina) and at Palermo, and this allowed us to show our offer and increase our confidence," he added.

First Export and Future Expectations

The concerted efforts and associative work carried out, together with the technical assistance and support provided by ProCórdoba’s Export Groups Program, allowed AlfaSud to achieve its first export. The destination of this milestone shipment was a large company that sells and distributes fodder in Aruba. Contact with the firm was established after preparing and sending sales presentation folders around the world, to places identified as strategic, as well as quotations to potential clients from Ukraine, Arabia, Arab Emirates, China, Uruguay and Peru.

Minister of Industry, Trade and Mining Eduardo Accastello referred to the accomplishment and said, "This is a new export from Córdoba that confirms the news that we are the province which, in the midst of the pandemic, has grown in exports by 1.6 percent, even when compared with the year 2019. Our Ministry continues to serve the needs of the sector and to promote Córdoba’s production to the world, generating more jobs, more innovation and more competitiveness. Our challenge is for Córdoba to export more."

Regarding expectations of further growth in foreign markets, Mansilla pointed out, “From the beginning, our first target was to export these mini-bales to China, for horse feed, particularly for the demanding polo and racing horse market. We have been working hard to penetrate the market and we are close to obtaining the corresponding phytosanitary certificates that will allow us, in the near future and with the advisory of Empresa Global SA, to export there regularly.”

The Export Groups Program that ProCórdoba Agency has been run for the last 10 years, promotes associative schemes as a tool to improve the competitiveness of SMEs and producers seeking to enter foreign markets.