A Brazilian ban on buying soybeans from illegally deforested areas in the worlds largest standing forest has seen a sharp drop in land clearance to grow the country’s largest cash crop, non-governmental groups such as Greenpeace and World Wildlife Fund say.
A Brazilian ban on buying soybeans from illegally deforested areas in the worlds largest standing forest has seen a sharp drop in land clearance to grow the country’s largest cash crop, non-governmental groups such as Greenpeace and World Wildlife Fund say.By Tony Danby in Sao Paulo
Major Brazilian and international soybean buyers, under NGO pressure in Western markets, are attempting to stem the rapid pace of deforestation in Brazils giant Amazon, often known as the lungs of the world.
Trading companies have clubbed together in Brazil, the worlds No.2 soybean producer after the U.S., to try and ensure that beans grown on illegally deforested land won’t reach consumers.
International trading groups such as U.S. giants Cargill, Bunge, Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) and Frances Louis Dreyfus as well as local company Amaggi, which account for around 90 percent of the country’s soybean purchases, since 2006 have frozen soy trade with producers that are suspected of cutting rainforest to grow soybeans used for food or animal feed.
The moratorium shows that production and conservation can go hand-in-hand, Paulo Adario, Greenpeace Amazon campaign director says.
Greenpeace uses inspectors and satellite images to identify new areas of deforestation in Brazil, he says. The result is positive and is an important example for modern agriculture and the Brazil of the future, he adds.
Forests saved
The moratorium, which covers rainforest in Mato Grosso, Brazil's largest soy producing state, Pará and Rondnia, led to 75 soy producers being banned this year from selling their beans after illegally deforesting land.
While the governments research and monitoring institute INPE says 6,295 hectares (15,555 acres) of rainforest have been chopped down and planted with soybeans between 2007 and 2009.
This is equal to only a quarter percent (0.25 percent) of the total 2.49 million hectares (roughly the size of Wales) deforested by other sources such as logging and ranching in the same period across the three states.
Adario warns, however, that work still needs to be done to register farms and to map their current land use by satellites in order to allow a faster response to fight deforestation and punish offenders. If soy prices rise, this could lead to more farmers being tempted to clear land for soy and a swift response is needed to stop this, Adario warns.
In 2006, the soy industry in Brazil came under intense pressure from environmental groups as well as customers such as McDonalds and Carrefour to stem the flow of beans from deforested areas.
Afonso Champi Jr, corporate affairs director at Cargill in Sao Paulo, recalls that the soy industry realized that unified action was needed. As a result, soy trading companies worked with Greenpeace to find a way to best control deforestation.
Champi, who is responsible for Cargill’s CSR in Brazil, says that the company introduced internal processes to halt soy purchases from deforested areas: “We have a centralized buying system and any farms marked as having deforested are automatically blocked in the system”. Cargill also educated traders, analysts and back office staff about the initiative and to find ways of controlling destruction of the rainforest, he says.
Sergio Mendes, director general of Brazil’s national grain exporters association, or ANEC, says that the moratorium remains important for soy buyers especially in Europe, with companies such as the UK's ASDA, Sainsbury’s and the Co-Op supporting traceability.
China, which buys around half of Brazil’s soy, buys its soybeans mainly from the main international trading companies that are part of the soy moratorium group. Chinese importers therefore have no choice but to comply with the moratorium and buy beans from non-deforested areas, Mendes says.
In the coming years, the expectation is to expand the moratorium. Environment minister, Izabella Teixeira says that the moratorium shows that companies can work together to tackle deforestation. The moratorium will be extended for at least another year, she says.
Carlos Lovatelli, president of Brazilian Oilseed Processors Association, or Abiove, says the moratorium is likely to continue after next year to ensure that soy purchases are controlled from the Amazon. He says that the moratorium can theoretically be phased out if conditions show inspections aren’t needed, but this is unlikely to happen for a while, he says.
Indeed, Lovatelli says that that although the moratorium covers 90 percent of the soybean industry, the founders are working to bring the remaining 10 percent into the moratorium.
The moratorium will also step up monitoring and inspections to curb deforestation, Lovatelli says.
NGOs such as Greenpeace and WWF have also pointed their fingers at Brazil's cattle industry, which is the worlds leading exporter of beef. Brazilian meatpackers supply major food chains such as McDonald’s and retailers such as Carrefour and Wal-Mart.
Now the hope is that giant meat companies such as Brazil’s JBS SA, the world's biggest beef producer, and Marfrig, a major Brazilian slaughterhouse, will hammer out rules to control deforestation by ranchers.
Greenpeace’s Adario says meat companies, who are working with Greenpeace to set up a beef moratorium, need to make their proposals about how to control beef purchases from cleared land in the Amazon in the coming months.
The largest meatpackers promised to deliver their proposals about monitoring cattle purchases from ranches in the Amazon region and the D-day to deliver this is in November, he says.