The world’s largest buyers of Brazilian soy have announced a plan to exit from a landmark antideforestation agreement, the Amazon Soy Moratorium. The voluntary agreement between soy agribusinesses and industry associations prevented most soy linked to deforestation from entering global supply chains for nearly two decades. The decision was communicated on Dec. 25, just before a new state tax law in Mato Grosso, Brazil’s biggest soy-producing state, went into effect on January 1st. The law eliminates tax breaks and access to public land for any companies that were signatories to the moratorium. The Brazilian Association of Vegetable Oil Industries, known as ABIOVE, notified civil society groups that it would withdrawing from the voluntary pact, which is expected to take 30 days to go into effect. “It is a setback that practically pushes us back 15 to 20 years,” Mauricio Voivodic, executive director at WWF-Brasil, told Mongabay by phone. ABIOVE’s logo, along with those of multinational grain traders it represents, has already been removed from the moratorium’s official website. The companies including Cargill, ADM, Bunge, Louis Dreyfus Company and COFCO International are among the biggest soy purchasers and traders in the world. It remains unclear if all companies will permanently leave the agreement. “ABIOVE’s announcement is the beginning of a withdrawal process, but company participation is voluntary. Some companies may decide to stay and others may decide to leave. We still do not know,” Voivodic added. The Soy Moratorium blocks the purchase of soy grown on land deforested in the Amazon…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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