Nearly 20 years ago, a Brazilian lobbying group for soy trading and processing companies signed onto a historic conservation deal known as the Amazon soy moratorium. The voluntary agreement prohibits members from buying soybeans grown on lands deforested after July 2008. Proponents of the deal say that it has been highly effective at protecting forest land without impeding soy production over the last two decades. Under the moratorium, growing soy on other lands — like those cleared before 2008, or pasture or savannah lands — is still fair game, and reports indicate that production on such lands in the Amazon has quadrupled since 2006. Now, amid changing political headwinds, the deforestation agreement is in danger.
On January 1, a new law eliminating the tax benefits for members of the moratorium took effect in Mato Grosso, the Brazilian state that produces the most soybeans in the country. These tax benefits functioned separately from the moratorium; nevertheless, following the new law, the lobbying group for soy traders — including multinational firms like Cargill, Bunge, ADM, and others — a... Read more
