Bunge Limited, headquartered in Chesterfield, Missouri, is the world’s largest soybean producer and sells the overwhelming majority of inputs to Brazilian soy farmers. A new report from environmental and human rights group says that the company's practices incentivizes deforestation and illegal land grabbing. A Missouri-based agricultural giant is helping fuel rapid deforestation in Brazil’s eastern savanna, a report by environmental activists claims.
Bunge Limited, headquartered in Chesterfield, is the world’s largest soybean producer and sells the overwhelming majority of inputs to Brazilian soy farmers.
The report, released Tuesday by a trio of environmental and human rights groups, says Bunge’s near-monopoly hold over financing soy producers in parts of Brazil — a characterization that the company disputes — incentivizes the expansion of plantations. And establishing soy plantations in Brazil, the report says, routinely involves deforestation and illegal land grabbing.
“It is this business model that is incentivizing the type of environmental and human rights abuses that we’re discussing here,” said Guarav Madan, senior forest and land rights campaigner for Friends of the Earth U.S., one of the organization’s behind the report.
He added: “This can be seen as an oversight, but I think it’s really a failure.”
In a response included in the report, Bunge said it was aligned with Friends of the Earth “that deforestation and human rights abuses are critical concerns”
“We devote considerable effort and resources to promote sustainable agriculture, disincentivize native vegetation conversion and incentivize the uptake of certified products that provide assurances of no deforestation or native plant conversion,” the company said.
The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday evening.
The report is also critical of the role Harvard University and retirement fund manager TIAA play in deforestation of the Brazilian savanna, known as the Cerrado.
The Brazilian Cerrado, the report says, is the world’s most biodiverse savannah and home to 5% of the world’s plant and animal species. While often overshadowed by the neighboring Amazon Rainforest, the Cerrado is a significant biome, the report says.
The investigation — published by Friends of the Earth U.S., ActionAid USA and Rede Social de Justiça e Direitos Humanos, or the Network for Social Justice and Human Rights — comes just weeks after Bunge announced it was raising its earnings outlook for the year following a record soybean crop in Brazil.
Last year, 10,688 square kilometers — or more than 2.6 million — acres of native vegetation were destroyed in the Cerrado, according to the report, which says that represents a 25% jump compared to 2021.
In the city of Santa Filomena, where Bugne owns and leases out silos, the report says deforestation nearly quadrupled in one year.
Source: kcur.org
Categories: Missouri, Business, Energy