Cargill 100% Against Moratorium On Clear-Cutting The Cerrado, But Here's $30 Million Of Greenwash
June proved to be a month of mixed, and contradictory, soy signals from Cargill, the largest privately owned company in the U.S., and Brazil’s second largest soy trader. The firm has extensive soy operations in the Cerrado — a biodiverse savanna biome experiencing rapid deforestation as agribusiness converts vast areas of native vegetation for cattle and crops. Last month, Cargill announced its ambitious soy action plan, committing the firm to transforming its “supply chain to be deforestation free, while protecting native vegetation beyond forest.” Included in that plan was a $30 million fund to source ideas to protect Brazil’s Cerrado biome. Then Cargill’s CEO posted an op-ed saying that the industry as a whole is poised to fall short of the goal of the New York Declaration on Forests, of which Cargill is a signatory, to halve deforestation by 2020 in key supply chains, including soy, while recognizing the urgent need to reduce native vegetation clearing in the Cerrado.
Coming as an even bigger surprise was an open letter from Cargill to Brazilian soy producers published online on June 24th, stating the company’s steadfast opposition to a proposed Cerrado soy moratorium. Environmentalists say that such a moratorium (as called for in the Cerrado Manifesto), would build on more than a decade of conservation success achieved by the Amazon Soy Moratorium, widely acknowledged for its key role in reducing deforestation in that biome since 2006.
“Cargill has just announced the creation of a $30 million fund to seek and foster innovative ideas that will contribute to ending deforestation in the Cerrado biome, [while] at the same time supporting the prosperity of rural producers and local communities,” wrote Cargill in the letter. “In a very objective way, the creation of this fund does not change the company’s position of being against the creation of a ‘Cerrado Moratorium’ and of continuing to participate and contribute… to the Cerrado Working Group (GTC).”
But critics argue that Cargill can’t have it both ways. They say that the long-term solutions needed to curb Cerrado deforestation already exist in the Amazon Soy Moratorium model, and that by refusing to consider any kind of moratorium in the Brazilian savanna, as called for in the Cerrado Manifesto, Cargill is pandering to its producers. At the same time, the firm will be able to publicize its $30 million deforestation idea fund as proof of Cargill’s green credentials in PR to consumers.
EDIT
https://news.mongabay.com/2019/07/cargill-rejects-cerrado-soy-moratorium-pledges-30-million-search-for-ideas/