Brazil has revoked a presidential decree that placed sections of three Amazonian rivers — the Tapajós, Madeira and Tocantins — under a state-led privatization program. Indigenous groups had protested the plan for 33 days by blockading a Cargill grain port in Santarém in the western Brazilian Amazon.
https://www.instagram.com/reels/DVHsZ8-iHKd/
citing the industry’s huge economic importance to Brazil, agribusiness groups have attempted to weaken the agreement. On Jan. 1, the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso, which produces more soybeans than any other, revoked tax breaks it previously provided to members of the moratorium. The following week, the Brazilian trade association that represents the biggest soy traders,including Cargill and fellow American grain-trading giants ADM and Bunge, pulled out of the pact.
The companies did not respond to questions from Inside Climate News, including whether they are individually withdrawing from the agreement or if they support the decision.
The weakening of the agreement comes amid a major infrastructure effort across the Amazon region, including a railway known as the Ferrogrão— or “grain train” in Portuguese—that agribusiness companies, including Cargill, have championed.
The railway would run from the town of Sinop, the epicenter of Mato Grosso’s soy cultivation, to the city of Itaituba, downriver from the Cargill port in Santarém. From there, barges ply the Tapajós northward to Santarém—and more will do so if the river is dredged.
The route follows an existing road, known as the “Soybean Highway,” that is notoriously choked with double-hulled trucks that haul soybeans to northern Amazonian ports.
The railway is part of a massive infrastructure ...............https://www.clientearth.org/latest/press-office/press-releases/agricultural-giant-cargill-faces-legal-complaint-over-deforestation-and-human-rights-failings-in-brazil/
Deficiencies identified by ClientEarth include that Cargill does not appear to conduct:
- Proper environmental due diligence on soy bought from third-party traders, as opposed to directly from farmers, which makes up 42% of all Brazilian soy it purchases;
- Any environmental due diligence on soy owned by other companies that passes through its ports;
- Any environmental due diligence for indirect land use change;
- Proper environmental due diligence on soy sourced from the Cerrado savanna, despite the massive rate of deforestation there and the biome’s environmental importance; nor,
- Any due dilige
nce for soy sourced from the Brazilian Atlantic Forest – a global biodiversity hotspot and an important region for conservation.Cargill said there is "strong evidence of vandalism and damage to assets" at the terminal.
pasture land causes pastures to expand into forest. And fifth, ClientEarth alleges that Cargill fails to conduct human rights due diligence and prevent adverse human rights impacts of its soy operations and supply chains on individuals and communities, particularly among: Indigenous communities including those of the Munduruku, Guarani Kaiowá, and Apiaká Indigenous peoples; Afro-Brazilian Quilombola communities; and other traditional communities including geraizeira communities and the Capão do Modesto Fecho de Pasto people.[14] The human rights impacts cited as “illustrative examples” include violence and harassment, forced displacement through persons conducting “land grabbing” to grow more soy, loss of traditional ways of life, destruction of an archeological site, and health harms caused by pesticides. ClientEarth further asserts, under every one of these five points, that Cargill’s due diligence policies are not publicly documented.
- The occupation marks an escalation between the protesters and the firm over proposed plans to dredge local rivers, like Tapajos, where grains like soy and corn are moved before reaching export markets. https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/indigenous-protesters-occupy-cargills-santarem-port-terminal-brazil-2026-02-21/
https://www.tcdailyplanet.net/stop-cargills-destruction-amazon/
As Greenpeace reports: “Our activists unfurled a banner on the conveyor belts at Cargill’s facility, but angry Cargill employees nearby blasted the sign down with high-powered hoses. Police arrived on the scene and arrested 16 of our activists. The Arctic Sunrise itself blockaded the Cargill port, preventing exports of soy from leaving the facility. In the nearby city of Santarém, a group of Cargill’s supporters surrounded the police station holding our activists, but were dispersed by military police.”
https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2020/11/25/cargill-deforestation-agriculture-history-pollution/
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