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Amazon ExportIn 2006 Brazil became the world’s largest exporter of soybeans, shipping more than 10 million tons each to Europe and China. Continued global demand for soy is driving what the U.S. Agriculture Department has called an agricultural “land rush” in Brazil. Go DeeperThe Nature Conservancy in Brazil Responsible Soy in the Amazon |
Making Soy Legal
Seeking a credible arbiter to help make certain its farmers are going legal, Cargill asked the Conservancy to oversee the registry of participating farmers and determine who is in compliance. “They don’t have the capacity to monitor this,” says Margaret Francis. “That’s where they are turning to us.”
To find out exactly what each participating farmer needed to do to become legal, Conservancy researchers fanned out around Santarém to gather data about the extent of deforestation. They spent four months traveling to each of the participating farms and helped the owners use Global Positioning System (GPS) equipment to record the boundaries of their land.
With the GPS data in hand, the researchers traced the perimeter of each farm on a collection of satellite images and verified the boundaries with deeds and legal documents. When they were done, the images revealed, quite clearly, how much of each farmer’s land was covered in natural vegetation and how much forest had been cut down.
Since then, the researchers have been working with each of the farmers to draw up plans to regenerate forests on their lands. They have also been working with a local forestry school to hold workshops for farmers on planting trees. Meanwhile, the Conservancy has shared its findings with Cargill, which is using the satellite data as a reference when buying soy from the farmers.
Afonso Champi, Cargill’s director of corporate affairs in Brazil, says that his company has been taking seriously its pledge to purchase only “forest-friendly” soy around Santarém. Starting from the last harvest in late 2006, Cargill has purchased soy only from farmers the Conservancy verifies are complying with the Forest Code or who have agreed to take steps to get in line.
Champi says Cargill bought 30 percent less soy from Santarém farmers last year because they didn’t meet the standards. “That shows we are rigidly sticking to the criteria,” says Champi. “I’d say it is evidence that we want to buy if the community understands that it must produce correctly and that it has a long-term commitment to sustainability and Brazilian law.”
Still, the problem with insisting on compliance is that getting everyone legal is a mammoth task. And the Responsible Soy Project is just a first step; the pilot project helped reform only a small percentage of the soy Cargill ships away from Brazil’s fields and former forests. In addition, the project covers a relatively small area: Just 5 percent of the soy that leaves Cargill’s port in Santarém bound for Europe and Asia comes from farmers near Santarém. (The other 95 percent is barged down the Amazon and its tributaries from industrial-sized soy fields farther south.)
The Conservancy’s longer-term goal is to change the way soy is grown throughout Brazil, not just in a handful of Cargill’s fields. In fact, the greatest threat from soy is now thousands of miles south of Santarém — in the southern and eastern reaches of the Amazon, along what is called the Arc of Deforestation.
Nature picture credits: All Photos © Alex Webb/Magnum Photos
