Brazil soy crushers extend ban on purchases from newly deforested Amazon

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Brazil soy crushers extend ban on purchases from newly deforested Amazon
MICHAEL ASTOR, Associated Press Writer

June 17, 2008 2:55 PM

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) - Grain crushers have extended a two-year-old moratorium on the purchase of soybeans planted in areas of the Amazon rain forest cut down after 2006, Brazil's environment minister said Tuesday.

Carlos Minc made the announcement together with the Brazilian Vegetable Oils Industry Association, a soy industry group, as part of a larger effort to regulate land use in the world's largest remaining tropical wilderness. The original ban began July 31, 2006, and was scheduled to end on July 31 of this year. It will now remain in effect until July 23, 2009.

Minc told reporters in Brazil's capital that he would work to fashion similar agreements with loggers, slaughterhouses, and steel mills in the Amazon.

''Without regulating land use, there is no economic zoning in the Amazon,'' Minc said.



Read more: http://www.newspress.com/Top/Article/article.jsp?Section=BUSINESS&ID=565317017541150331

---

Landmark Amazon soya moratorium extended
17 June 2008

Brazil — The announcement from soya traders in Brazil to extend a moratorium on soya expansion, provides hope for the Amazon rainforest. We're not out of the woods yet, but this decision and the history of campaigning which got us here should be celebrated and built upon to protect all ancient forests for the future.

We've received good news about the ongoing campaign to protect the Amazon rainforest: the landmark two year old "soya moratorium", brought about after we demonstrated that the rainforest was being cleared to make way for soya farming, has been extended for another year.

The Amazon campaign
Rising international demand for soya had led many farmers to drive deforestation to make way for soya cultivation. Back in 2006, we published ‘Eating up the Amazon’, a report on our investigation into the links between soya in the supply chains of leading international food companies and the destruction of the Amazon rainforest. At the same time, we dressed up as chickens and heckled McDonald's, one of the companies using soya from the Amazon for Chicken McNuggets back then. The costumes were sweaty but lucky for us (and the planet), McDonalds quickly reacted and agreed to join us and lead a call for a change.

Responding to this pressure, the major soya traders operating in Brazil announced a two year moratorium which came into effect in July 2006, stopping for the time being the trade in soya grown on newly deforested land. Although recent figures show an increase in Amazon deforestation rates, after three years of decline, the first field evaluation show that the soya harvested this year in the Brazilian Amazon has not come from newly deforested areas. In other words, the moratorium is doing its job and halting soya related forest destruction, despite the pressure from rising soya prices.

More:
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/news/amazon-soya-moratorium-renewed-170608

[Lone_Star_Dem]

1. Good for them!

Bravo! :applause:

[nam78_two]

2. K&R.nt

[mopinko]

3. responding to pressure. what a concept.

would be nice if it caught on, eh?

[Canuckistanian]

4. There's still a market for soya cattle food

But this is a good first step.

Brazil's hinterland is still the equivalent of "the wild west" in America - wholesale rape of the land and precious few laws or regulation.

But as long as there are buyers of products that are extrememly harmful to the environment - this will go on.

[ohio2007]

7. Iraq wants to import more food from Brazil

But as long as there are buyers of products




BRASILIA, June 17 (Xinhua) - Visiting Iraqi Trade Minister Abdul Falah Al-Sudani on Tuesday said his country is interested in purchasing more food from Brazil, the biggest food producer in South America, local media reported Tuesday.Meeting with Brazilian Minister of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade Miguel Jorge in the city of Sao Paulo, Al-Sudani said that some 80 percent of the 8 million tons of food Iraq needs per year is imported, and Brazil enjoys the capacity to become Iraq's main food suppler.

Al-Sudani said the international price hikes of oil, which Iraq exports, allow the Iraqi government to raise the amount of food it can import.

Brazil exports such categories of food to Iraq as chicken, sugar and powdered milk, with exports worth 226 million U.S. dollars in 2007.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-06/18/content_8390283.htm

Iraq has the oil $ to buy lots of Brazilian produce. Don't know how the soy fields will come into play

[ohio2007]

9. Iran, Brazil give priority to energy, agricultural cooperation

snip
We believe that the production of ethanol in Iran can help decrease air pollution and increase incomes," Sheikh-Attar further said.

Kroetz, for his part, outlined policies of his country in agriculture sector, saying that Brazil underlines the necessity of attracting foreign investments and increasing export of agriculture and animal animal husbandry products.

He also expressed his country's readiness for production of ethanol and conduction of research on cattle breeding in Iran.



http://www2.irna.ir/en/news/view/menu-237/0806192106011813.htm


If nobody buys the soya,
will soya be converted into ethanol in those tracts of slashed rain forrest ?

maybe they will grow saw grass.

[progressoid]

5. .

:thumbsup:

[nam78_two]

6. kick.nt

[DCKit]

8. Great, so they'll contact the Colombian cartels...

and we'll have illegally imported soybeans instead of cocaine and weed.

Hey, that's not such a bad idea.