this is unfortunately a long article from our allies in Argentina. They have the same problems with BINGOs, and soy, as we have in Papua New Guinea with BINGOs and oil palm.
if you are concerned about oil palm expansion and destruction of ancient forests in Papua New Guinea, then you need to spend some time reading this article, and learning who is who, and what they are doing.
THE BUSINESS OF "SUSTAINABLE SOY"
The first meeting of the Business Roundtable of "Sustainable Soy" took place on the 17th and 18th March of 2005 in a 5 star hotel in Foz do Iguazú, the heart of the MERCOSUR of soy. During these two days around 200 people debated about soy production. Among the participants were representatives of transnationals involved in soy production, manufacture and trade like Unilever, Monsanto, Bunge, Carrefour; conservationist NGOs such as Conservation International, IUCN and The Nature Conservancy. Government representatives of producer countries such as Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay, as well as of the importer countries like Holland were also present. The debate focused on the expansion of production to satisfy world demand, its consequences and the conservation of high biodiversity areas.
In this article we will analyze the antecedents of the Roundtable, the participants and the presentations and debates, with the objective of understanding the nature of this negotiation space conformed by corporations and NGOs.
Previous experiments
According to the WWF the experience of working with corporations to promote conservation has already been successful and they reaffirm this in the following way: "The format that the 'Sustainable Soy' Forum tries to follow has been extensively tried and tested in other similar contexts involving different interests and actors." The experiences they are referring to are: the "Global Compact", the "Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil " and the "Forum of the Sustainable 100 Million", an initiative of WWF Argentina.
The Global Compact was a United Nations project that was launched in 2000, and consisted of debating on better corporate practices regarding topics such as human rights and the environment. Fifty multinational corporations participated e.g. Shell, Nike, Bayer, Unilever and Novartis together with NGOs like the WWF among others. The Global Compact was thoroughly questioned because of the participation of such transnationals known worldwide for their violations of human and labor rights, environmental disasters and even involvement in military dictatorships. Also, the pact was criticized, among others, for considering that the UN would be profoundly manipulated by the corporations as well as for the non obligatory nature of the agreements. This created mistrust and suspicion that many corporations just wanted to benefit from the good public image that the UN would bring them.
The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) began in 2003. It is an initiative of the WWF together with companies involved in the production chain of palm oil, with the objective of using market mechanisms to create "sustainable palm oil". The proposal was severely criticized by some NGOs, based on the argument that wide scale conversion of natural habitat for monoculture production, by definition, cannot be sustainable. After two years of development, criticisms have arisen about the dominance of the corporations: the annual participation fee is 2000 Euros, an amount that few groups from the South can pay. Also, the dominance of the English language in their documents is a big obstacle for participation of peasants organizations. According to the critics, the RSPO works towards the business sustainability of the palm oil sector, not towards a social or environmental sustainability. The participation of NGOs in the RSPO is denounced as a tool of legitimation of the expansion of palm oil plantations.
In addition, previous experiments with sustainable certification of the WWF have had few and/or opposite results. For example, in the case of Papua New Guinea, where Chevron planned to install an oil pipeline straight through virgin tropical forest and associated itself with the WWF by developing a project of sustainable logging in order to prevent the environmentalists' critiques. This project was scandalously denounced in the Australian press when it was discovered that the WWF was certifying timber from tropical mangroves.
In Argentina the Forum of the 100 Million tons of Sustainable Grains is an initiative led by the Fundación Vida Silvestre (FVS, WWF Argentina) and the Argentinean Association of Agribusiness (IAMA). This Forum is presided by Héctor Laurence, who at the same time is president of the FVS and of the Argentinean Agribusiness Association (IAMA), and former president of Pioneer Hi Bred Overseas Corporation, which is part of DuPont, a multinational with huge stakes in the international seeds business. The objective of this Forum is to increase the national production of grains from 70 to 100 million tons, reaching 70 million tons of GM soy, through an expansion of 5 to 12 million hectares of crops, preserving only certain areas of high biodiversity.
Who participated in the RSS? As mentioned above, in the first meeting of the Roundtable of "Sustainable Soy" representatives of civil society, of the soy production chain and of governments converged. Most of the delegates that participated were from the exporting countries in South America: Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Bolivia. The North was also represented by delegates from the Netherlands, Switzerland and the United States.
The organizing committee for the Roundtable consisted of the WWF, the food transnational Unilever, the Brazilian soy producer AMaggi, the federation of small farmers of the South of Brazil FETRAF, the Dutch development agency Cordaid and the Swiss supermarket chain COOP. The RSS was presided by Yolanda Kakabadse, ex-president of the International Union for Nature Conservancy. The meeting was financed by the Swiss Ministry of Economy.
The representatives of the different parts of the chain of soy formed approximately half of the participants in the RSS. The rest was composed of: representatives of the civil society, mainly conservationist NGOs, and government officials of the previously mentioned countries.
The financial sector was represented by the Dutch bank Rabobank and the English bank HSBC, which are among the main shareholders of ADM, Cargill, Bunge and Louis Dreyfus, the four companies that control the world trade of soy. The International Finance Corporation, part of the World Bank, a big financier of the expansion of soy, was also present. In 2002 and 2004, the IFC gave two loans of 30 million dollars each to the Amaggi group to expand storage infrastructure and for liquid capital, but without carrying out the adequate environmental and social evaluations. Financing this expansion signifies the expulsion of the indigenous peoples and farmers from their lands and more deforestation.
The productive sector was dominated by the presence of big producers like the Maggi family from Brazil, AAPRESID, the Zero Tillage producers and the main GM soy lobby in Argentina, as well as the Zero Tillage producers from Brazil, the Associacao de Plantio Direito No Cerrado, and the Sociedad Rural Argentina. There was even a minimal presence of small producers of which FETRAF-Sul in Brazil would be the most notable because of being part of the organizing committee.
The producer group Andre Maggi is not only the largest producer of soy in the world, but also the biggest buyer of soy in Mato Grosso, where Blairo Maggi is governor. The Maggi group is strongly criticized because of the devastating impacts of the soy expansion, like increasing deforestation and displacement of indigenous peoples. Amaggi was also recently denounced together with Bunge and Cargill Brazil for its link to slave labour through the supplying companies.
The Maggi group can also be found among the traders and processors as well as Bunge of the United States. Bunge together with three other big transnational corporations - Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), Cargill and Louis Dreyfus - control foreign export and soy processing in the four South American producer countries and 80% of the soy processing industry in Europe.
Some of the actors present in the RSS
FETRAF-SUL did not sign the final conclusion of the RSS. The food industry could count on its interests being served, as Unilever, the third biggest food firm in the world, was part of the RSS organizing committee. This Anglo-Dutch corporation is one of the biggest buyers of agricultural raw materials such as tea, vegetables, and vegetable oils (palm oil and soy). Therefore, their operations have an enormous impact on the development of agriculture worldwide. Unilever was the first corporation that began to use genetically modified products, specifically, GM soy. It also finances biotechnological research and supports its use as a tool to create uniform crops and convenient standardizations for industrial production. Unilever participates in lobby groups like the European Roundtable of Industrialists (ERT), EuropaBio (the largest biotechnology lobby group in Europe) and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. It works together with the WWF in the Roundtable of Sustainable Palm Oil and in a sustainable fishing project called the Marine Stewardship Council. There are also two members of the WWF in the advisory committee of Unilever's sustainable agriculture initiative. Furthermore, the food industry was represented by industry organizations such as the Product Board of Margarines, Fats and Oils (MVO) from the Netherlands and the Brazilian association of the Food Industry (ABIA) and the Brazilian Association of the Industry of Vegetables Oils (ABIOVE).
Soy is mainly used for the production of animal feed, which explains why there was a large presence of European animal feed companies. Companies such as Nutreco, which possesses 19 % of the European animal feed market, and Van den Avenne, Deuka and Cefetra were present in the Roundtable. Cetrefa is part of TrusQ, an alliance of animal feed companies that control 60 % of the market in the Netherlands. Actually, all the representatives of the animal feed companies were from the Netherland, the second largest importer of soy in the world.
The retail sector was only represented by COOP and Carrefour. COOP is the biggest supermarket chain in Switzerland. It participates in the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil and has a large campaign in its country for the promotion of certified GM free products. Carrefour is the second largest supermarket chain in the world with sales of 72 billion dollars in 2004, of which 86 % is generated in Europe and 6.5 % in Latin America. The increasing domination of the supermarkets, with their systems of global supply, has had a disastrous effect on small producers in developing countries. The supermarkets generally buy at a large scale and, therefore, only buy from the big producers. They use quality, safety and efficiency standards that are generally very expensive and impossible for the small producers to abide by.
It is important to emphasize the presence in the RSS of corporations that dominate the world market of inputs from seeds to agrotoxics: Dupont, Pioneer, Monsanto, Syngenta and Dow Agro Sciences. The agrotoxics that they produce have caused countless damage to the environment as well as to human and animal health, and even the death of thousands of peasants all over the world. Monsanto produces the herbicide Roundup, which is specific for the fumigation of its variety of genetically modified Round-Up Ready resistant soy (RRsoy),corn. canola and cotton. Argentina has received a preferential treatment by this multinational. Not only did it allow soy to be planted without demanding royalties for more than one decade which only favored its expansion; It also subsidized the sale of Roundup increasing the consumption of this herbicide from 28 million liters in the period 1997/8, when RRsoy was first introduced in Argentina, to up to 150 million liters today.
The objective of the WWF was to summon all the present actors in the soy production chain and they were really all there; the most to the least visible ones, including the suppliers of seeds and agrotoxics. Even the new actors of the "Sustainable Soy" chains were present: the certifiers and the consultants. The only actors that did not have a voice nor a vote in the encounter were all those excluded by the soy production chain. We are referring to evicted peasants, marginalized people in the city, expelled indigenous communities, doctors that attend the people intoxicated by agrochemicals, amongst others.
Those that might become future actors of the "Sustainable Soy", are the new suppliers of environmental services that are generated by the "Sustainable Markets". An initiative such as the RSS is a design of a new product line, developed in multiple reports of international consultant agencies. These agencies identify the problem, outline different scenarios, and monitor the actors involved in the ongoing sustainable projects. For the trade of these product lines it is required to create certifications of the used techniques and of the avoided impacts, due to physical distance as well as the number of intermediaries. In this new context of unlimited expansion of GMOs, also arises the necessity of a guarantee of the lack of genetic contamination and therefore traceability techniques are needed to trace all the ingredients of a product from their points of origin. In summary, it is a whole opening of new markets with opportunities for products with added value. Nowadays, with governments giving less and less financial support to civil society organizations this also opens an opportunity of economic viability for NGOs which can develop and certify environmental services taking advantage of the trust of the public opinion.
It is in this context that we should see the assistance to the RSS of the following environmental consultant agencies: AIDEnvironment (the Netherlands) has elaborated several reports on soy for the WWF; ProForest (United Kingdom) produces the reports of the Roundtable of Sustainable Palm Oil; Elabore Consultoria C/S (Brazil) works on the topic of carbon sinks; and Oystercatcher Management (The Netherlands) is specialized in the soy market.
Furthermore, there were several representatives of environmental services, certification and traceability present: Ecocert Brazil, Imaflora (Brazil) IQS Genlab (Brazil) and the following examples of the NGOs that fulfill the role of certification can be included The Nature Conservancy, the WWF and Solidaridad. This last one is a Dutch organization that was closely involved in the development of the fair trade movement through successfully spreading Max Havelaar coffee in the Netherlands. However, in these last years, it has developed a new certification with lower standards of fair trade and adapted to the supermarket dynamic together with big companies such as the Dutch supermarket chain Ahold, the third largest in the world..
A large company in the field of certification is Cert ID from Switzerland, that certified 8 million tons of soy meal in 2004, a quarter of the total consumption in Europe. Cert ID is part of the same company as Trace Consult. This company was not present at the Roundtable but follows the same path and is organizing in June this year the "Non-GM Soy Summit Meeting" for "NGO strategists and others who are interested in exploring the real problems around the availability and commercialization of non-GMO products in Europe and in discussing detailed aspects with those who make the (soy) world move." "The meeting should be a rare occasion for Brazilian producers and exporters to interact with European retailers and food manufacturers and all those from the supply chain in between." Trace Consult justifies the invitation of the NGOS in the following way: "non-governmental organizations are a major factor when it comes to the future availability of non-GMO soy products in Europe". In other words, the role of NGOs is to prepare the markets on the supply side, promoting the availability of non GM Soy, as well working on the demand side, organizing public campaigns to stimulate consumption of non-GM food products. There should be no doubt that Carrefour Brazil will participate in this meeting.This seems so, since during its presentation in the Roundtable Arnaldo Eijsink of Carrefour Brazil expressed that " The soy project is to develop an entire chain of non GM soy production for the export of dairy and meat products for Carrefour in Europe ", At current date, Carrefour already buys 300,000 tons of traced and tested soy per year in Brazil for its non-GMO products in France.. It makes one doubt if the representatives gathered in the Bourbon Hotel in fact were proposing a change in agricultural policies or if this was rather the launch of a new line of products that needed a large advertising party with lots of publicity.
What was said in the RSS? Was it No to GMOs?
In the following sections we will analyze the messages expressed by some of the participants of the Roundtable. Some of the organizations which are protagonists in the struggles against GMOs considered that the Roundtable of "Sustainable Soy" would talk about not using GM soy and that therefore it should be supported. Next follow some opinions.
During his presentation Luis Cubilla of the Paraguayan Camera of Export of Cereals and Oil Seed (CAPECO) expressed: "thanks to the access to the biotechnology that we have right now in Paraguay, we maintain a high productivity, working with genetic materials that will be further improved." Cubilla does not mention that the regularization of RR soy in Paraguay took place only at the end of 2004, after a half decade of cultivating GM soy openly but illegally, without any type of authorization.
The opinion of the Argentine Association of Zero Tillage Producers (AAPRESID) was that "to solve all the hunger in the world we need to use all knowledge, from agroecology to biotechnology." AAPRESID sustains Monsanto's publicity campaign, in spite of coming from a country where 50% of the population is below poverty level. This is not surprising considering who is behind AAPRESID, they represent soy producers but are strongly dominated by Monsanto, Cargill, Nidera, Syngenta, Bayer, DowAgro Science... among others.
In an interview with Javier Corcuera of the Fundacion Vida Silvestre (WWF Argentina) he states that "if one wants to lessen the expansion of the agricultural frontier, it is necessary to increase productivity. To increase productivity: Argentina has already taken the decision. 99% of the soy is GM, it is not necessary to further debate on this issue ". Corcuera continues by comparing biotechnology with a hammer: "a hammer cannot be criticized because it is a tool. Nor can biotechnology be criticized a priori. It is necessary to analyze case by case." This quote reaffirms the position of FVS regarding Biotechnology that can be found on their web page: "Fundacion Vida Silvestre Argentina recognizes the benefits of biotechnology and considers that its impacts should be analyzed case by case, based on the best available science. There are no valid reasons to oppose a technology in general, only to some of its uses."
On the contrary, “The Basel Criteria for responsible soy production” developed by ProForest for the Swiss supermarket chain COOP, clearly states that “Genetically modified material must not be used”. Despite these radical opposed positions of some NGOs and biotechnology and producers companies, in the workshops this does not really seem to be a big issue as in the workshop conclusion genetic contamination is only mentioned one time. In the final document no clear position against GMOs is stated. Then, it is necessary to ask ourselves if "Sustainable Soy" will exclude GM soy or if the RSS will follow the RSPO's example where the use of genetically modified palm trees neither questioned. Although two NGOs have proposed its exclusion, neither the companies nor the conservationist NGOs consider it necessary to include it as a criteria.
No to expansion and deforestation?
In the following paragraphes, we will quote some views of the participants of the RSS in reference to the expansion of production. AC Soja talks about the "Forum of the Sustainable 100 Million" in Argentina. He clarifies that to meet this objective, "it is necessary to create infrastructure like roads, bridges, access to harbors and airports, etc." He refers to how to realize the expansion of between 5 and 12 million more hectares of cultivated land in Argentina. He does not mention how to slow down or stop this expansion. Roberto Peiretti, founding member of AAPRESID, says: “soy is not the problem, the expansion of soy is not the problem, it is part of a solution, not the solution…”
Luis Cubilla, executive director of CAPECO from Paraguay, exposed in the RSS about "the Responsible Expansion of Soy in Paraguay" and criticized deforestation caused by peasants in the past decades. Additionally, Javier Corcuera of Fundación Vida Silvestre proposed to expand on the degraded (secondary) forest in order to save other forests, ignoring that in these secondary forests (that also have a significant level of biodiversity) peasants and indigenous communities live. Thus, Corcuera does not seem to have a problem with the violent land evictions that the peasants and the indigenous people might suffer in order to save some islands of high biodiversity.
Here we should pay attention to some of the “social criteria” that the RSPO has drafted for further public consultation in June 2005. In the draft criteria they include the following provisions requiring: "No diminishment or loss of customary rights without Free, Prior and Informed consent (FPIC). No new plantations on indigenous peoples’ lands without FPIC Fair compensation of indigenous peoples and local communities for land acquisitions and extinguishment of rights, subject to FPIC and negotiated agreements. " In this context, FPIC might become another trap to legitimize further expansion of production on land acquired from peasants and indigenous people, maybe even through negotiations that will trick or force people to give or sell their land..
Regarding deforestation in relation to soy, the Brasilian Forum of NGOs and Social Movements (FBOMS) are one of the few that contribute concrete data: "there is a clear correlation between deforestation rates and the soy expansion within the studied areas in the Amazonian region" It is demonstrated that 70 % of the deforestated areas are at current date used for agriculture and 55 % of these are cropped with soy." The rate of annual loss of forest in the Amazone increased by 40 % in 2002 mainly as a result of the pressure to substitute forests for soy crops and pastures for cattle.
Despite that FBOMS present these data in the RSS, afterwards Flabio Triguierinho of the Brazilian Industry Association of Vegetable Oils, declares that "the cultivation of soy is minimal in comparison with its surface; the planned 70 % increase of national production will only require 37 % increase of cultivated area" and that " soy beans are environmenally friendly and are not devastating the Amazon forest."
Blairo Maggi also does not seem to be convinced of the problem of increasing deforestation, stating: "For me an increase of 40 % of deforestation does not mean anything at all, and I do not feel guilty at all for what we are doing here. We are actually talking about a surface bigger than Europe that has barely been touched, so there is nothing to worry about."
The participants of the RSS did not solely talk about the "sustainable" expansion of soy in the Amazone, they are already implementing it. A month after the RSS, in Brazil the conservationist organization The Nature Conservancy (TNC) together with the Embassy of Great Britain and the transnational Cargill, launched a project to certify soy cultivated in the Amazone as "organic". Ana Cristina Barros, national representative of TNC and participant of the RSS, defends the initiative, saying that "certification could be an incentive to comply with the environmental legislation."
Also shortly after the RSS, CordAid, the Dutch aid agency part of the RSS organising committee, together with the Bolivian NGO Probioma organised a Conference for "the strengthening of a responsible management of soy production and its trade perspectives in other markets". The title is already referring to export, so actually it seems that CordAid is just preparing new suppliers for the Netherlands.
Thus, it seems that the general discourse maintained in the RSS was not about deforestation, but more about the expansion of soy production, despite of some more concerned references relating this expansion to deforestation. Is "sustainable development" contradictory to deforestation? It even seems to fit into the new models of "sustainability". The increase of organic production needs undisturbed land, soils that have not been contaminated by agrotoxics. Lynn Clarkson, owner of Clarkson Grain’s, from USA and one of the main organic soy suppliers to soy milk producers in the USA and other 15 countries such as Japan, Corea and several EU countries visited Argentina at the end of 2004. He said then, that he saw Argentina to be ideal as a supplier of great volumes of organic soya. How can he see this in a country where 99% of soy is RR soy?. In an interview to an Argentine newspaper he said that he believed that organic soya will be developed on degraded forest fields where it is easier and quicker to obtain certification, since these are practically virgin land where agrochemicals or fetilizers have never been used.
Environmental Services
The "sale of environmental services" has become a new umbrella concept to justify the mercantilization and privatization of basic services and resources, undermining ethical and cultural values, affecting to a major extent indigenous and peasant communities. Examples of environmental services are amongst others: sale of the forest as carbon sinks, protection of the water basins and protection of biodiversity, including biopiracy and ecotourism. The payments for environmental services represent a synthesis of environmentalism with economic liberalism. In this way, the development of "environmental services" was mentioned in various presentations in the RSS. They were also talked about in the conclusions of the working groups: "It is necessary to create economic instruments to remunerate the environmental services" as well as "Realizing studies and surveys to evaluate the valuation of nature and the opportunity costs of ecosystem conservation."
An example of the environmental services that might in the near future be related to soy is the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. The Convention on Climate Change and the corresponding Kyoto Protocol establish market mechanisms to reach the agreed reduction targets of greenhouse gas emission. A new global market of Certificates of Emission Reductions has been established and is estimated to have a value of $ 33.750 million US dollars per year. Within the protocol the possibility of Clean Development Mechanisms (CDM) emerges to implement projects of green energy, such as biofuels and the capture of carbon dioxide through reforestation.
The soy sector has shown from the beginning a big interest to enter this new market. In November 2004, AAPRESID joined the COP10 in Buenos Aires promoting soy and its Zero Tillage cultivation as a carbon sink. This method consists of not ploughing the land and decreases the decomposition process of organic material with consequently less emission of carbon.
In the minutes of the "Forum of the Sustainable 100 Million" in Argentina it is agreed to support research of the role of agrosystems in the capture of carbon, referring to "No Tillage, as a wide spread technique in the country...and as a consequence there might be opportunities for Argentinean agriculture in the context of the Kyoto Protocol." Similarly, Flabio Triguerinho of ABIOVE in his presentation in the RSS mentioned Zero Tillage as a production method with a lower emission rate of carbon dioxide. This explains why the RSS debated in which ways soy production can be a solution to climate change in stead of recognizing how deforestation caused by the expansion of soy contributes to climate change.
In the CDM the development of biodiesel will be very important. As the opinion of Gaston Fernandez Palma of AAPRESID about biodiesel and climate change indicates: "Argentina should act according to the frame of the Kyoto Protocol, which through the CDM enables the biofuels as a cooperation method in the reduction of the greenhouse gases." "The possibility to add a new use to the agriculture raw materials beyond the traditional food purpose, will trigger the expansion of the production levels and will signify an incentive for the development of new technologies supporting the increase of productivity and consequently the food supply."
Argentina has already entered the era of CDM, signing clean energy agreements with Germany and Japan, in which biodiesel plays a fundamental role. It is clear that for AAPRESID climate change is an opportunity to acquire funds to expand even more, this time with an ecologist slogan. They need soy to be "sustainable" to be able to include it in these "green" projects. Now we understand why the cultivation of soy for biofuels or its categorization as carbon sinks, arouses such a big interest of corporations to establish a "sustainable market".
Conclusions
The expansion of soy monoculture stimulated by the increasing demand of the world market is a major threat to the nature and the people of Latin America.
The Roundtable on "Sustainable Soy" does not in any moment question the root cause of this threat. Soy production has become a principal source of income for the export countries' economies and an essential source of raw material for the food and animal feed industry in the North, it does not feed people.
Such powerful production model only maintains slave labor, land evictions, deforestation and intoxication while keeping aside essential values such social justice and land reforms
Code of conduct based on market strategies will never resolve anything but instead will promote free market strategies that have shown their limits. Obviously, Monsanto, Dupont and Bunge participation’s in this scheme is an opportunity for them to test the ground for the development of a new chain of products which will englobe transgenics and organics in the same bucket, all labelled as sustainable.
NGOs promoting this concept are merely acting as lobby groups, transforming anti-GM and solidarity campaigns into the promotion of niche markets, which will only benefits the industrial monoculture paradigm, allowing The Agribusiness to continue on the same track while promoting its image "in the service of human kind" and in favour of the reduction of climate change. We cannot accept that !
In Argentina this concept has only resulted in more suffering of people that are dying of hunger surrounded by GM areas that were once covered by forests or used for food production of local communities. "fair trade" cannot and should not be used to validate concept such as "Corporate Social Responsibility".
We must refuse the legitimacy of NGOs that gather with business interests promoting ‘sustainable soy’. To produce fodder in one continent to satisfy the demand of meat production in other continents
.
Instead, we must promote a food system that allows the recovery of local production based on diversity and respect of the environment and cultural identity which will bring food security and social justice to local communities everywhere.
