TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Brazil-focused potash project developer Verde Potash on Tuesday said it had appointed Alysson Paulinelli, the president of the Brazilian Association of Corn Producers to its board to replace Richard Garnett, who would be retiring for personal reasons, after serving as a director since 2011, and as a technical consultant since 2008.

Paulinelli has a distinguished career devoted to the agricultural sector and government, having held positions such as the Brazilian Minister of Agriculture, president of the National Confederation of Agriculture, congressman, Secretary of Agriculture for Minas Gerais state, and professor and dean of Lavras University. In 2006 he was awarded the World Food Prize.

Having served twice as Secretary of Agriculture of Minas Gerais, between 1971 and 1974 and between 1991 and 1998, Paulinelli was instrumental in realising the potential of the Cerrado, a fertile agricultural heartland, to make Brazil one of the world's great breadbaskets.

Towards that end, he developed policies, created institutions, constructed specialised infrastructure and increased support for agricultural research and training.

During his tenure, Paulinelli enabled large-scale development in the Cerrado by implementing a new model of financing agricultural production that consisted of loans at very low interest rates, with extended grace periods and payments, which allowed farmers to reinvest a share of their profits.

He also fostered a new mix of loans from public, private and foreign sources, including an agreement between Brazil and Japan to secure financial resources needed to further advance the Cerrado region.

In 1974, Paulinelli was nominated Brazil's Agriculture Minister. As Minister, he established the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (EMBRAPA), a tropical agriculture research institution, which studies, improves and transfers technologies for advancing modern agriculture throughout the country.

As a branch of EMBRAPA, Paulinelli had also established the Cerrado Centre (CPAC), which focuses on agricultural development in that region. Such initiatives have led to Paulinelli being portrayed as "the leader that farmers have consistently turned to solve their problems and assist them in advancing agricultural and rural development".

Paulinelli received the World Food Prize for his contribution to changing the Cerrado region into productive land. Paulinelli also implemented the Brazilian Cerrado Cultivation and Development Programme, implemented the Brazilian Cerrado Development Programme, and created the Agribusiness Institute of Minas Gerais.

Verde is focused on advancing the Cerrado Verde project, located in the heart of Brazil's largest agriculture market.

Cerrado Verde is the source of a potash-rich deposit from which the company intends to produce both ThermoPotash and potassium chloride (KCl). ThermoPotash is a controlled-release, non-chloride, multi-nutrient fertiliser that is ideally suited for Brazilian soils. The company is also developing its Calcario limestone project, with limestone being a critical raw material in the company's process to produce both ThermoPotash and KCl.