Brazil to use COP26 to boost image of country’s farming
Brazil’s Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, and Supply wants to revert the environmentally negative image that agribusiness has overseas. Government officials will use the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) to improve its reputation.
While participating Tuesday (Aug. 24) in the debate Pro-climate: Agribusiness, Food Security, and Sustainability, promoted by Brazil’s National Industry Confederation (CNI), Agriculture Minister Tereza Cristina said that COP26 will represent an opportunity for the country to show the world “the positive role of Brazilian agribusiness in mitigating emissions and adapting to climate change.”
“We know the characteristics of our tropical agriculture, which stands out as one of the world’s most productive, innovative, and decarbonizing. However, we were surprised to learn how little is known about our agribusiness outside of Brazil. This lack of knowledge ends up being used by those attempting to spread biased narratives that transfer to this sector a portion of the historical burden for the emission of greenhouse effect gases,” the minister declared.
Tereza Cristina said that the government and society are gearing up to “bring the Brazilian vision of agriculture and environment to COP26.”
“What we argue for is that the positive role of farming in the mitigation of emissions and adaptation to climate change. I am convinced that Brazilian agriculture has been doing this for a long time, through a number of public policies stimulating practices like directing planting, RenovaBio, the use of the second harvest in the same area, planted forests, and the policies on bio-supplies that grows on the daily.”
RenovaBio is Brazil’s national biofuel policy, aimed at helping meet the country’s yearly decarbonization goals in the fuel sector, boosting production and the use of biofuels in Brazil’s energy network for transportation.
“The Brazilian experience has shown it is possible to get meaningful results with a balanced sustainable approach in agriculture. We understand this is the vision that must prevail in COP26 talks as well as from November on,” the minister went on to say.
Deforestation
In his address at the debate, Orlando Leite Ribeiro, the ministry’s secretary for Commerce and International Relations, said deforestation issues are even more severe for Brazil due to a foreign perception made stronger by countries seeking to “defend their inefficient systems” of agricultural practice.
“We must differentiate the problem we have from the image problem. We do have issues regarding increasing deforestation figures. The government is aware of that and is trying to address it. But there is a bigger problem, which is how it is perceived overseas. In the Europeans’ minds, the Amazon is burning and they’re extracting wood in the heart of the Amazon, but we know that’s not the case,” Ribeiro said.
The secretary noted that the Amazon biome is a vast area occupying over 50 percent of the Brazilian territory. “This problem occurs chiefly at the northern fringe of humanization in Mato Grosso and the south of Pará. It’s a rather localized problem,” he added.
When asked about whether the criticism targeting the country is an attempt to impose commercial barriers on Brazilian agriculture, Ribeiro said the government is concerned “with how this issue is being dissected.”
“Indeed, the international pressure, especially from the European Union, came after the conclusion of negotiations on the agreement between Mercosur and the European Union,” the secretary said.
“I acknowledge that there is a problem and that we must address it in order to revert the deforestation issue. However, I ask myself, if this problem is solved, won’t there be other difficulties hindering the agreement. For instance, labor rights. Brazilian agriculture is really competitive, and this can be scary. So, this kind of response is normal coming from countries that want to defend their inefficient systems and their traditional models,” he argued.
