The $25 billion of government payments late in 2020 certainly helped move these indexes in a favorable manner combined with of course strong commodity prices with corn hovering around $550 and soybeans up above $14.
During the quarter, our adjusted gross margin of 11.8% was the strongest margin achieved over the previous ten quarters.
Also, our adjusted EBITDA over $17 million was our highest since the first quarter of 2019.
However, I don't think I have found anyone that can recall a time when we've see steel go from $445 a ton to $1,200 in such a short duration and then also be in short supply as well.
First, our cash position was [Phonetic] $117 million for the year, up $51 million from last year-end and we accomplished this through strong operating cash flow in Q4 and for the full year, along with our efforts to secure liquidity through non-core asset sales and related transaction.
Operating cash flow for the fourth quarter was $10 million, which pushed full-year operating cash flow to $57 million.
As anticipated, we completed further transactions in non-core -- of non-core assets of $16 million in Q4 and for the full year, it's up $53 million.
Second, related to the cash improvement, our net debt position at the end of the year was $347 million, down from $366 million at the end of last quarter and $433 million at the end of last year.
Second, we also continued our strong adjusted gross margin trend with 11.8% for the quarter, best margin performance, we've seen in ten quarters.
First, we broke down certain equipment to fair value related to our entire recycling operations in Canada and this resulted in a charge of $11.2 million.
Secondly, we wrote off intangible assets related to our customer relationships from our acquisition of the Australian operation many years ago and it resulted in a charge of $6 million.
In October, we sold our facility in Brownsville, Texas garnering net proceeds of approximately $11 million and a gain on sale of $4.9 million.
And finally, in November we received further recovery related to an insurance claim from the fire in our Canadian Tire recycling operation from 2017 of $3.6 million.
Net sales for the fourth quarter were up over 8% from Q4 2019 representing a nice turnaround in a year where we saw an overall decrease in sales of 13%.
What is even more impressive is on a constant currency basis, total sales was up nearly 15% from Q4 last year or $45 million.
The negative currency impact was approximately $19 million or 6% with most of the impact coming in Latin America and Russia, as we saw throughout 2020.
Our overall sales volume on a consolidated basis was up over 20% from last year and price and mix in the fourth quarter was down about 6%, mostly reflecting lower raw material costs and related material pricing mechanisms with our OE customers.
Consolidated net sales in the agriculture segment improved by 15% in the fourth quarter, with growth coming from all parts of the world.
On a constant currency basis, agricultural sales were -- would have been up 25% in Q4, led by North America, Latin America and Europe.
For the full year, the agricultural segment experienced growth on a constant currency basis of 4% on the healthy turnaround in the second half of the year.
These trends are accelerating as we progress into 2021.
During Q4, the EMC segment showed growth of 4.5% on a reported basis and on a constant currency basis, it grew by over 6%.
Our overall North American sales were up over 6% relative to last year, all of this growth coming from agriculture, while the EMC segment was down slightly reflecting a slower recovery.
Reported sales for Latin America in Q4 were up almost 16% while on a constant currency basis, sales would have increased by over 41%.
Adjusted gross profit for the fourth quarter was $38 million versus $18 million in the fourth quarter of 2019, representing a 110% improvement.
Our adjusted gross profit margin in the fourth quarter was 11.8% versus only 6% last year.
Our agricultural segment net sales were up $21.5 million or 15.3% from Q4 2019.
Currency translation was significant in the fourth quarter and affected sales by 9.4%, particularly in Latin America and to a lesser extent the Russia.
Volume in this segment was up 32% while we had a decline in pricing of 7.6%, relating primarily to lower raw material costs.
Overall Ag sales in North America were up 16%, our Russia ag sales were up somewhat [Phonetic] from a year ago, and on a constant currency basis.
And our European Ag sales were up almost 30% from Q4 2019.
Reported Ag sales in Latin America were up 22% from last year, and while on a constant currency basis they were up 47%.
The agricultural segment's adjusted gross profit for the fourth quarter was $21 million, up from $9.2 million years ago -- a year ago, representing a 127% increase.
The gross profit margins in Q4 were 13% for Ag, which was a significant improvement from the margin we saw in Q4 2019 of 6.6%.
Overall, the EMC segment experienced an increase in net sales in Q4 of $6 million or 4.5% from last year, and on currency -- constant currency basis, net sales was an increase by 6.3% versus a year ago.
Which meant that currency was only a minor impact of 1.8% for the quarter.
Volume was up in the EMC segment by a 11% while the impact of price and mix was negative at 4.6%.
ITM's undercarriage business saw an increase in EMC sales by almost 12% from the fourth quarter of last year.
Now, on a constant currency basis, the increase was almost 14%.
Adjusted gross profit within the EMC segment for the fourth quarter was $14 million representing an improvement of $6.9 million or 109% from Q4 2019.
The entirety of the TTRC impairment of $11.2 million was recorded in this segment in the fourth quarter.
The adjusted gross profit margin in the EMC segment was 10.4% versus 5.2% of last year.
Consumer segments, Q4 sales were down 7.7% from last year.
The negative impact from currency translation was 13%.
So volume increased by 8% and price and mix was down by almost 3%.
The segments gross profit for the fourth quarter was $3.2 million, a healthy improvement from Q4 2019 and gross margins were 11.5%, which was an improvement from 7.6% in the fourth quarter of last year, reflecting improved production efficiencies from the increased volume.
Selling, General and Administrative and R&D expenses for the fourth quarter were $39.3 million, but this includes $6 million in impairment charges related to the Australian customer relationships I described earlier.
Excluding this, we spent about $33 million in the quarter, which was a bit higher than our Q3 level.
Costs related to investments improving our supply chain and logistics processes totaled approximately $1.3 million in the quarter.
For the full year, excluding the unusual charges in 2020 of $11 million, our SG&A and R&D costs were $129 million coming in below the low end of our range of expectation about $130 million to $135 million.
Foreign currency revaluation was less of a factor on the results in Q4 and a $1.3 million loss in fourth -- but for the full year, the total negative impact from foreign exchange revaluation totaled $11 million compared to a gain of $4 million in 2019.
We recorded tax expenses in the quarter of $4.6 million on a pre-tax loss of $14.9 million during the fourth quarter.
For the full year, tax expense was $6.9 million on a pre-tax loss of $58 million.
Again cash improved another $18.5 million in Q4 versus Q3 and for the year it improved by almost $51 million.
We generated approximately $57 million in operating cash flow for the full year of 2020, a strong improvement over 2019, and again this came from our focus on working capital management.
With the Company back to strong operating cash flow and those non-core transactions, we generated $89 million of free cash flow for 2020.
Capital expenditures for the fourth quarter were $8.3 million, which was more in line with our quarterly historical levels for capital spending.
For the full year of 2020, we've spent nearly $22 million on capex, again reflecting the needs to control our investments in amid the pandemic.
This compares to $36 million spent in 2019.
We anticipate spending to increase in 2021 to roughly $35 million to $40 million, but we will carefully calibrate these investments to work closely with our cash flow from operations through the year.
Our overall debt level at the end of the year was in a stable position relative to the end of the third quarter and while for the year debt declined by $35 million from the end of 2019.
Short-term debt at the end of the December was $31 million, which is down over $30 million since last year end.
At the end of December, the borrowing capacity, when you take away the letters of credit and adjusting for the borrowing base calculations of AR and inventory was at $51 million on the ABL line.
We also anticipate some letters of credits to expire in the first half of the year which could free up an additional $8 million to $13 million in capacity and we also anticipate additional capacity coming on as our borrowing base grows with the business activity.

Summary:
These trends are accelerating as we progress into 2021.
We anticipate spending to increase in 2021 to roughly $35 million to $40 million, but we will carefully calibrate these investments to work closely with our cash flow from operations through the year.