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Global commodities giant Cargill continues to buy soybeans from a farm in Brazil that cultivates on illegally acquired and deforested land.
The Parceiro farm in Bahia state, owned by SLC Agrícola, has been implicated in a $200 million land-grabbing scheme being investigated by Brazilian authorities.
Also implicated in the case is the U.S. teachers’ pension fund TIAA, an investor in one of the parcels of illegally acquired land that effectively overlaps with SLC’s farm.
Cargill, which has a zero-deforestation commitment for its supply chain from the Cerrado, says it placed no restrictions on soybean purchases from SLC in 2020; it bought more than a quarter of the grower’s crop the previous year.
Author(s): Caio de Freitas Paes
Publication Date: 3 February 2021
Publication Site: Mongabay