South America Calling

Brazil's grain industry will extend its moratorium on Amazon soybean purchases until May 31, 2016, amid concerns that deforestation is creeping higher.

The moratorium was due to end Dec. 31, 2014, but it has been given a last-minute reprieve while the new system of environmental controls, laid out in the 2012 Forestry Code, is implemented.

According to Manoel Pereira, chairman of the Brazilian Vegetable Oil Industry Association (Abiove), Izabella Teixeira, the environment minister, requested the 17-month transition period before the end of the moratorium.

Under the moratorium, the soybean industry undertakes to avoid buying soybeans from illegally cleared properties or properties cleared after July 2006 in the Amazon basin. In a slight modification, as of Jan. 1, 2015 the moratorium will only apply to land cleared after 2008, bringing it in line with the new Forestry Code.

The roll back on the decision to end the moratorium came following news that Amazon forest clearance rose 29% in the 12 months to July 2013, jumped some 122% in August and September compared with the year before, plus the refusal of Brazil to sign a United Nations deforestation pact has created negative publicity.

Back in the early 2000s, deforestation of the Amazon was surging out of control. Although most cleared land was converted to pasture, the expansion of soybeans along the forest's edge in Mato Grosso was seen as a key driver.

Amid European threats of an embargo, the Brazilian soy industry announced the moratorium.

The ban has been effective. According to the industry, which estimates that soybean planting was responsible for just 0.9% of clearance in the 2013/14 crop cycle and farm leaders have argued the ban is no longer necessary with the passing of the new Forestry Code.

Environmental groups celebrated the decision to extend the moratorium.

"The soy moratorium is one of the most effective tools available to allow companies to confidently source deforestation-free commodities, said Nathalie Walker, senior manager at the National Wildlife Federation.

(CZ)

© Copyright 2014 DTN/The Progressive Farmer. All rights reserved.