Soy traders including ADM, Cargill, Cofco and Bunge signed up for the “Amazon soy moratorium” in the mid-2000s, pledging to stop buying soy from farms in the Brazilian rainforest that were deforested from 2008 onward.

Scientists and conservationists have praised the voluntary moratorium for slowing deforestation in the Amazon, the world’s largest rainforest and a bulwark against climate change because its trees absorb vast amounts of climate-warming greenhouse gas.

The moratorium is enforced by a working group including representatives of trading companies, environmental advocacy groups and the government.

In recent meetings of that group, grains traders have proposed changing the moratorium rules, Carolina Pasquali, executive director of Greenpeace Brasil, said in an interview.

The current agreement bars soy purchases from a whole farm if it includes areas deforested since 2008. But traders now propose a distinction between individual soy fields, letting growers export from one part of a farm while planting soy on newly deforested areas nearby, Pasquali said.

“It makes the moratorium lose its meaning,” she said. “Farmers failing to comply (with the end to deforestation) would still be able sell their soy.”

Abiove, which represents those trading firms and all major soy purchasers in Brazil, said it was holding discussions on the moratorium, but did not confirm details of any proposal.

Abiove members ADM, Cargill, Cofco, Bunge and Louis Dreyfus referred questions to the association.

The Guardian newspaper reported earlier that Abiove members planned to vote next week on whether to push for the proposed moratorium changes.

Even if Abiove members were to back such a move, environmentalist groups and government signatories to the agreement would need to agree to the change, Pasquali said.

Other nonprofits also told Reuters they oppose the change.

Under Brazil’s forestry code, landowners in the Amazon can legally clear up to 20 per cent of their property. However, a surge in deforestation in the early 2000s sparked calls for action by the private sector, which feared a wider boycott of soy exports.

Brazil is the world’s largest producer and exporter of soy. Environmentalists argue weakening the moratorium could open up a huge amount of the Amazon region to soy planting.

“It is very much an enormous amount of land that was deforested after 2008 in the Amazon,” said Jean-François Timmers, an anti-deforestation campaigner with the World Wide Fund for Nature. “We’re talking about millions of hectares.”

In its statement to Reuters, Abiove noted that Brazilian state lawmakers are pushing legislation “that significantly harm the signatories of the Soy Moratorium.”

The state of Mato Grosso passed a law stripping tax breaks from firms that adhere to the moratorium.

Abiove said it defends the soy moratorium while “striving to balance the demands of both farmers and consumers, including updates to the current model to ensure its effectiveness.”

— Reporting by Ana Mano, Roberto Samora and Jake Spring

The post Soy traders push to weaken ban on buying from deforested Amazon appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Below-average rainfall – even through the rainy season – has plagued the Amazon and much of South America since last year, also feeding the worst wildfires in more than a decade in Brazil and Bolivia. Researchers say climate change is the main culprit.

Scientists predict the Amazon region may not fully recover moisture levels until 2026.

Last year, the drought became a humanitarian crisis, as people reliant on rivers were stranded without food, water or medicine.

This year authorities are already on alert. In hard-hit Amazonas state, at least 62 municipalities are under states of emergency with more than half a million people affected, according to the state’s civil defense corps.

“This is now the most severe drought in over 120 years of measurement at the Port of Manaus,” said Valmir Mendonca, the port’s head of operations, who said the river level is likely to keep falling for another week or two.

With the region never fully recovering due to weaker-than-usual seasonal rains, many of the impacts of the drought last year look set to repeat or reach new extremes.

The Port of Manaus measured the Rio Negro river at 12.66 meters on Friday, according to its website, surpassing the previous all-time low recorded last year and still falling rapidly.

The Rio Negro is a major tributary of the Amazon River, the world’s largest river by volume. The port sits near the “meeting of the waters” where the black water of the Negro meets the sandy-colored Solimoes, which also hit a record low this week.

Grain shipments have been halted on the Madeira River, another tributary of the Amazon, because of low water levels, a port association said last month.

Researchers are once again finding the carcasses of Amazon freshwater river dolphins, which they blame on thinning waters driving the threatened species into closer contact with humans.

National disaster monitoring agency Cemaden has already called the drought Brazil’s worst such event since at least the 1950s.

The drought has also sapped hydropower plants, Brazil’s main source of electricity. Energy authorities have approved bringing back daylight savings time to conserve electricity, although the measure still requires presidential approval.

The extreme weather and dryness is affecting much of South America, with the Paraguay River also at an all-time low. That river starts in Brazil and flows through Paraguay and Argentina to the Atlantic.

The same extreme heat and dryness is helping drive surging fires in the Amazon and neighboring Pantanal, the world’s largest wetlands. Bolivia is also on track to break a record for most fires ever recorded, according to data from Brazil’s space research agency.

The post River level at Amazon rainforest port hits 122-year low amid drought appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“Fire is not natural in the Amazon, it comes from criminal actions or deforestation,” Environment Minister Marina Silva told reporters. “There are people criminally setting fire to public and private areas.”

The world’s largest rainforest is facing a historical drought worsened by the El Nino weather phenomenon. Rainfall below average is increasing the polluting effects of the region’s annual burning season.

This is the time of year when fires tend to spike in the Amazon as rains subside, making it easier for ranchers and farmers who use fires to clear land, raise cattle and grow commercial crops.

According to the Brazilian government, 60 of the 62 cities in northern Amazonas state have declared a state of emergency because of drought and wildfires, and the month of October is expected to be “challenging.”

Silva said the government would send more than 300 firefighters and two aircraft to help put out the fires.

Those who deliberately set fire to private areas will have their properties embargoed and no longer be able to obtain funding, according to the head of environment agency IBAMA, Rodrigo Agostinho.

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has staked his international reputation on reversing environmental back-sliding under his far-right predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, when Amazon deforestation soared.

In the first nine months of 2023, deforestation in the region fell 49.5 per cent on a yearly basis, according to preliminary data from space research agency INPE.

“If we hadn’t reduced deforestation by almost 50 per cent we would be living through the Apocalypse,” Silva said. “Right now we’re in a climate emergency in Brazil.”

— Reporting for Reuters by Eduardo Simoes; writing by Gabriel Araujo.

The post Brazil tells landowners to stop setting fires in Amazon ‘climate emergency’ appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

In a presentation, federal prosecutors said they were “negotiating improvements” with companies such as JBS with “unsatisfactory and worsening” performance in the audit, which analyzed cattle transactions between January 2018 and June 2019.

In a statement, JBS said the audit changed some of its criteria, impacting the results. Prosecutors said nothing changed in their methodology or the way they audit companies.

JBS also acknowledged the need to implement “additional measures to reinforce its due diligence work in the state” and said it would invest five million reais (C$1.14 million) to improve the sustainability of its supply chain.

The 2020 audit found no irregularities related to cattle purchases from Minerva, South America’s largest beef exporter and a key rival of JBS, the presentation showed.

Cattle ranching is one of the main drivers of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest and the results of the audit add to growing concern that JBS is contributing to the destruction by buying cattle from illegally cleared land.

The Amazon, the world’s largest rainforest, is a crucial bulwark against climate change due to the carbon it absorbs and stores.

JBS, along with other major meatpackers, reached a settlement with prosecutors in 2013 in which the companies agreed not to buy cattle from ranches that were cleared illegally since 2008 or otherwise blacklisted for environmental crimes.

The companies also agreed to stop buying cattle from ranchers blacklisted for engaging in slave labour, occupying indigenous land and violating environmental preserves.

The agreement was initially celebrated for contributing to a marked fall in deforestation, but in recent years has drawn increasing criticism from environmentalists for lacking teeth. Although prosecutors have the power to fine companies for poor compliance, they have so far chosen not to do so and preferred to work with meatpackers to improve their results.

Prosecutors monitoring that agreement in Para state found JBS had improved its compliance in a 2019 audit, when eight per cent of cattle bought by the company came from ranches with “irregularities,” down from 19 per cent in a 2018 audit.

However, that ratio jumped to 32 per cent — or more than 300,000 head of cattle — in the 2020 audit presented on Thursday.

— Reporting for Reuters by Ana Mano in Sao Paulo; writing by Brad Haynes.

The post Brazil’s JBS bought 301,000 cattle from ‘irregular’ farms in Amazon, audit finds appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“We know it is very difficult to achieve this,” CEO Gilberto Tomazoni said in an interview. “It will challenge the entire company.”

JBS said in 2019 that its own operations produce an estimated 4.6 million tonnes of carbon emissions from industrial facilities and 1.6 million tonnes from energy use.

But some 90 per cent of overall JBS emissions come from its supply chain, Tomazoni said, without giving a specific figure. He said traditional cattle rearing emits 40-45 tonnes of carbon equivalent per tonne of meat produced.

Brazil is home to one of world’s largest commercial herds, and new cattle ranches are a major driver of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest, an essential bulwark against catastrophic climate change.

Methane, a natural byproduct of digestion in cows and other ruminants, is also a major source of greenhouse emissions. About a third of greenhouse emissions from agricultural production, excluding land-use change, comes from methane released by cows, according to the Washington-based World Resources Institute.

The 2040 target announced by JBS comes amid a growing backlash from consumers and investors threatening to boycott or divest from companies contributing to deforestation in Brazil.

As part of its plan, JBS vowed to invest US$1 billion over the next decade in innovations aimed at reducing carbon emissions in its global operations. The commitment also involves a pledge to pay for reforestation and forest restoration initiatives.

The company has also promised to stop processing cattle coming from illegally deforested areas in the Amazon by 2025 and in other Brazilian biomes by 2030. Those targets also reflect when JBS will be able to track both its direct suppliers and their suppliers.

In the long run, JBS said the adoption of intensive cattle farming will replace the sprawling ranches that now dominate Brazil’s current approach, helping to cut emissions.

JBS said also that it will be using 100 per cent renewable energy worldwide by 2040, while executives’ variable pay will be measured against the delivery of environmental goals.

— Reporting for Reuters by Ana Mano and Nayara Figueiredo.

The post JBS pledges net zero greenhouse emissions by 2040 appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Brazilian meatpackers are facing increasing criticism that beef production is fueling deforestation in the Amazon, where cleared land is often used for cattle pasture.

The move is part of a broader set of environmental actions announced by JBS on Wednesday as it launched a one billion-real (C$243 million) fund to foster social and economic development in the Amazon.

The company aims to invest 250 million reais in the fund in its first five years and may invest more 250 million by 2030, depending on donations, global CEO Gilberto Tomazoni said in an interview. Third-party companies are expected to join the project and invest up to 500 million reais.

It comes as deforestation soars. Last year, in the worst destruction for over a decade, an area the size of Lebanon was cut out of the world’s largest rainforest — a vital bulwark against climate change.

JBS, along with other major Brazilian meatpackers, has worked to ensure it does not buy cattle from farms that have cut down the forest without permission, but has previously only monitored the final ranch that sells to them.

Ranches further down the chain, so-called indirect suppliers, have avoided these checks, meaning cattle can be easily “laundered” from illegally cleared pastures to farms with no environmental record that then sell to slaughterhouses such as JBS.

JBS said it plans to monitor 100 per cent of its indirect cattle suppliers by 2025, using blockchain.

“Currently, the company does not monitor indirect suppliers and no company does so. But we plan to close this gap using technology,” Tomazoni said, adding its 50,000 direct suppliers are already monitored.

The company plans to use information provided by its suppliers to monitor indirect suppliers, aiming to launch the system in 2021, starting in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso.

KLP, Norway’s largest pension fund with $80 billion under management, said it would be watching for concrete results.

“If this move by JBS can contribute to responsible and traceable supply chains, it is a positive step but we have to see the detailed evidence in practice,” said the fund, which does not own JBS stock and is among a group of the most active global investors threatening to pull out of Brazil-linked investments if the country doesn’t act to curb deforestation.

— Roberto Samora is a Reuters commodities editor in Sao Paulo; writing by Carolina Mandl and Stephen Eisenhammer.

The post JBS vows to monitor whole cattle supply chain’s impact on Amazon appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

The data from Brazil’s INPE space research agency, which showed deforestation soaring 29.5 per cent to 9,762 square km for the 12 months through July 2019, sparked an uncharacteristic admission by the government that something needed to be done to stem the tide.

It was the worst level of deforestation since 2008, heaping further pressure on the environmental policy of Bolsonaro who favours developing the Amazon region economically.

The Amazon is the world’s largest tropical rainforest and is considered key to the fight against climate change because of the vast amounts of carbon dioxide it absorbs.

Risks to the forest drew global concern in August when fires raged through the Amazon, drawing sharp criticism from France’s President Emmanuel Macron.

At a briefing to discuss the numbers, Environment Minister Ricardo Salles said the rise in deforestation showed the need for a new strategy to combat the illegal logging, mining and land grabbing which he said were to blame.

Environmentalists and nongovernmental organizations placed the blame squarely on the government, saying that Bolsonaro’s strong pro-development rhetoric and policies to weaken environmental enforcement are behind the rise in illegal activity.

“The Bolsonaro government is responsible for every inch of forest destroyed. This government today is the worst enemy of the Amazon,” said Marcio Astrini, public policy co-ordinator for Greenpeace, in a statement.

Bolsonaro’s office directed Reuters to remarks made by Salles and another official and did not comment further on the issue.

In August, Reuters reported Bolsonaro’s government had systematically weakened environmental agency Ibama, grounding a team of elite enforcement commandos and forbidding agents from destroying machinery used to illegally deforest.

Brazil’s Climate Observatory, a network of nongovernmental organizations, said the 2019 increase in deforestation was the fastest in percentage terms since the 1990s and the third fastest of all-time.

In response to the numbers, Salles vowed to roll out a series of measures to counter the rising deforestation, including stepping up enforcement efforts assisted by high-resolution satellite imaging.

The minister said he would meet governors of Amazon states on Wednesday to discuss tactics to counter deforestation.

All options are on the table, according to Salles, including mobilizing the military for use in environmental enforcement operations.

Government reversal

Salles’ recognition that deforestation is indeed on the rise comes after months of the government casting doubt on preliminary monthly data showing destruction was skyrocketing.

At multiple press briefings earlier this year, Salles alleged the monthly data was unreliable and contained inconsistencies. He had urged journalists not to report the monthly figures and wait for the annual data, announced Monday.

Bolsonaro had accused the INPE space research agency of lying about the monthly data. In a high-profile dispute, then-INPE chief Ricardo Galvao stood by the data and called Bolsonaro “a joke of a 14-year-old boy that is not suitable for a president of Brazil.” Galvao was later fired.

The annual figure accounts for seven months under Bolsonaro, but also measures five months under the previous government.

It also does not account for destruction after July. Preliminary data for August to October shows deforestation more than doubled compared to the same period a year-prior to 3,704 square km.

NGOs say they fear that protections could be weakened further as the government considers allowing commercial agriculture on native reserves, expanding wildcat mining and allowing for illegally occupied land to be “regularized.”

Beef prices are also at record highs in Brazil, leading some environmentalists to fear it could fuel land grabbing for cattle ranching — one of the biggest drivers of deforestation.

“The coming years could be even worse,” said Carlos Rittl, executive secretary for Climate Observatory.

— Reporting for Reuters by Marcelo Teixeira; writing by Jake Spring and Stephen Eisenhammer.

The post Brazil Amazon deforestation soars to 11-year high appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

The push to end traders’ voluntary “soy moratorium” — one of the farm industry’s most high-profile efforts to preserve the Amazon — comes despite mounting global pressure on Brazil to protect the environment from its expanding farm frontier.

Rising deforestation in the Amazon and the sight of fires raging there this year have gripped the world’s attention, but the world’s biggest grains traders cited their moratorium as evidence that the destruction was not driven by demand for soy.

Some have even suggested the model of a voluntary soy ban could be expanded to the adjacent Cerrado biome, where the pace of deforestation has outstripped the Amazon in recent years.

Farmers are having none of that, Bartolomeu Braz Pereira, president of Brazilian soy producer association Aprosoja Brasil, said in an interview.

“They came with plans to expand the moratorium to the Cerrado and we said we’re going to overturn it in the Amazon,” Pereira said. “We’re discussing that with the government.”

He said Bolsonaro and his chief of staff had agreed at an Aug. 29 meeting that the soy moratorium unfairly hurt Brazilian farmers complying with domestic laws and that the government would soon come out against it.

Press representatives for Bolsonaro declined to confirm or deny Aprosoja’s account. Representatives for his chief of staff did not respond to a request for comment.

Bolsonaro has pledged to bring down barriers to economic development in the Amazon and lashed out at global criticism of Brazil’s environmental record. But he has not publicly backed Aprosoja’s campaign to overturn the Amazon soy moratorium.

Soy crushing group Abiove, which represents global grains traders in Brazil, warned that such a move could hurt farmers, creating backlash against Brazilian goods in European markets, where consumers demand more environmentally sustainable farming.

“(Producers) have no idea of the impact, if the moratorium were overturned. It would be huge,” said Abiove President André Nassar.

He added that the ban had not stopped the growth of farming in the Amazon, as farmers can continue to expand soy planting in parts of the biome cleared before 2008.

However, farmers represented by Aprosoja are demanding that traders also buy soy from the 20 percent of their land in the Amazon that they are allowed to deforest by law.

“The producer has to have the right to do what the law says. It’s a matter of national sovereignty,” said Antonio Galvan, vice-president of Aprosoja.

– Additional reporting by Anthony Boadle in Brasilia

The post Brazil farmers push traders to end Amazon soy moratorium appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Recent rains in both countries have helped put out the wildfires, which were likely started by farmers and ranchers using slash-and-burn agricultural methods.

They have, however, destroyed large swaths of forest that lock in precipitation in the region, threatening a system of clouds known as “air rivers” in the Amazon that distributes 23 billion cubic metres of water across South America per year, said Leonardo Melgarejo, an agronomist with Brazil’s Santa Catarina Federal University.

That might mean less rain in places that produce beef and soy in not just Brazil and Bolivia but also Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay, said Melgarejo, potentially knocking a key driver of regional economic growth.

“The borders that divide our countries are fictions from the point of view of nature,” said Melgarejo. Destruction of just five per cent more of the Amazon rainforest will trigger a worsening cycle of drought, fires and deforestation, Melgarejo said.

“We’re very close to a moment of collapse,” said Melgarejo told Reuters at a gathering of scientists in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, a lowland region hit hard by this year’s fires.

German Heinzenknecht, weather specialist with the Applied Climatology consultancy in Argentina, said areas of the Pampas farm belt, including the provinces of Cordoba and Santiago del Estero, could be vulnerable to fallout from the fires.

“It is very possible that parts of northern Argentina will be affected by a delay in the start of the rainy season or that rains will be altogether less than normal. Everything depends on the area that is affected by the fires in Bolivia and Brazil,” Heinzenknecht said.

Farmers were already concerned about dryness in Argentina’s western farm areas before the fires. The country is a major exporter of soy, corn and wheat, and it is the top supplier of soymeal livestock feed.

Brazilian right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro and Bolivian leftist President Evo Morales, ideological opposites, have both been criticized for backing an expansion of soy and beef production in forested regions that environmentalists blame for the rash of fires this year. Both have downplayed the impacts amid the outcry.

Fires in Bolivia have swept over more than five million hectares, at least a two-decade record, according to Bolivian environmental group Friends of Nature Foundation.

Morales is up for re-election Oct. 20, with recent polls showing he may not have enough support to avoid a run-off vote for the first time ever.

Last week, Paraguay’s parliament passed a resolution urging President Mario Abdo to ask Bolivia for compensation for damages to Paraguay’s flora and fauna from fires lawmakers said started in Bolivia.

— Reporting for Reuters by Monica Machicao; additional reporting by Hugh Bronstein in Argentina.

The post South America fires could disrupt its farm belt’s rainfall appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Speaking at an industry event in Sao Paulo, JBS CEO Gilberto Tomazoni said the company is using satellite technology to monitor a 450,000 square-km area of Brazil to guarantee it is not buying cattle from deforested areas.

“We need to offer what the consumer wants. We cannot do that without worrying about the environment and animal welfare,” Tomazoni said. “This is fundamental to our business.”

The executive noted a new generation of consumers believe that “modern agriculture” destroys the planet. He called that perception misguided given that such up-to-date methods allow JBS and others to produce more food with far fewer resources.

His remarks come as fires burning in parts of the Amazon rainforest have sparked a global outcry against Brazil for allegedly failing to protect what is widely viewed as a key bulwark against global climate change.

Last month, local media reported JBS had been buying cattle from ranchers operating on deforested land in the Amazon, a claim denied by the company, which is the world’s largest producer of beef, chicken and leather products.

In a statement sent to Reuters, however, JBS admitted at the time that surveying indirect cattle suppliers was challenging due to a lack of public databases that would allow development of a proper monitoring system.

— Ana Mano is a Reuters commodities correspondent in Sao Paulo.

The post Brazil’s JBS says it uses satellites to monitor cattle suppliers appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.