By Ana Mano
SAO PAULO (Reuters) -Almost 98% of the farms that are blocked by Brazil’s “Soy Moratorium,” a corporate agreement that seeks to protect the Amazon rainforest, cleared land illegally in Mato Grosso state, according to a study commissioned by oilseed lobby Abiove, which oversees the pact.
Under the moratorium, a two-decade-old voluntary agreement, some of the world’s top grain traders, such as ADM, Bunge and Cargill, committed not to buy soy grown on land deforested after 2008, regardless of whether farmers had cleared land legally or not.
Brazilian farmers, who in recent months have stepped up attacks against the moratorium, have long complained that the agreement blocks farmers who comply with environmental rules, which bar farmers from clearing more than 20% of properties to grow commercial crops in the Amazon after 2008.
But the new study, which was obtained by Reuters exclusively, shows that only 50 of the 2,168 farms that were blocked by the moratorium in Mato Grosso, Brazil’s largest soy producer, had authorization from the government to clear plots where they now grow soy. Another 440 farms deforested more land than they were authorized to clear, moratorium data for Mato Grosso showed.
Aprosoja-MT, which represents the state’s farmers, said it could not comment on the study because it did not have access to its findings.
It said the debate over the soybean moratorium is not environmental, but rather of a competitive nature.
“The moratorium is commercially biased and excludes soybean producers from exercising their right to sell their product, imposing a rule that violates our legislation and our national sovereignty.”
The study, which covers the 2022/23 harvest, used proprietary moratorium data as well as federal and state databases to show that the agreement currently blocks soy farms covering 614,495 hectares (1.518 million acres), representing 5.25% of Mato Grosso’s soybean area.
Soy now covers 11.7 million hectares (28.9 million acres) in the state, half of which sit in the sensitive Amazon biome, which is essential for the global struggle to curb climate change and biodiversity loss. Scientists say that the moratorium was successful in stopping much of the soy-driven deforestation in the Amazon.
Mato Grosso produced 51 million tons of soybeans in 2024/25, nearly a third of Brazil’s output.
Brazilian farmers have launched multiple legal challenges against the moratorium and also persuaded state legislators in Mato Grosso to pass new laws to weaken the program.
(Reporting by Ana Mano in São Paulo; editing by Manuela Andreoni and Leslie Adler)
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