Soy Moratorium extended until May 2016

The federal government and representatives from the private sector and civil society organizations have agreed to extend the Soy Moratorium, an agreement to bar industry and exporters from buying soy grown in deforested areas in the Amazon biome. The ban, which has been extended to last until May 31, 2016, applies to areas deforested from July 2006 onwards, but a revised Code on Forests has changed this date reference to only include areas deforested after July 2008.

The moratorium was signed by Environment Minister Izabella Teixeira; the chairman of the Brazilian Association of Vegetable Oil Industries, Carlo Lovatelli; the general director of the National Association of Grain Exporters, Sergio Mendes; and the Greenpeace strategist for Forests, Paulo Adário, who joined as a civil society representative.

According to Adário, the moratorium had a “crucial” role in reducing deforestation. The Ministry of the Environment, who represents Brazil's government in the covenant, has provided details on areas monitored during the agreement. In the period 2007-2013, 42,028 hectares of soy land were found in cleared areas that are subject to the moratorium across 73 municipalities in the states of Mato Grosso, Pará and Rondônia – which account for 98% of the soy grown in the Amazon biome.

Soy growing in areas under the covenant has gone up 61% between the 2012/2013 and 2013/2014 harvest seasons, which means an area of 17,733 hectares. According to the Environment Minister, there was economic pressure due to the rising prices of soy. “Some producers chose to simply ignore law,” she said. The minister noted, however, that the total soy illegally grown during the years of the moratorium is not significant relative to the national and local production levels.

The ministry reports that the area illegally planted with soybeans accounts for 4.6% of the total deforestation that occurred within the 73 producing municipalities in the period, and 0.9% of the deforested area in the entire Amazon. Moreover, the average rate of deforestation in the monitored municipalities has become 5.1 times lower since the covenant was signed.

The government's aim is to enforce the moratorium until its efforts to monitor deforestation can rely on an Environmental Registry of Rural Land introduced by the new Code on Forests, which should also be fully implemented by 2016. The registration began in May, with 10% of the total 5.6 million farms in the country listed so far.

Translated by Mayra Borges