Major soy traders abandon amazon no-deforestation pledge after brazil threatens tax penalties

In a significant blow to Amazon conservation efforts, the world’s largest soy trading companies are withdrawing from a groundbreaking environmental agreement that has protected millions of acres of rainforest for nearly two decades. The Brazilian Association of Vegetable Oil Industries (ABIOVE), representing agricultural giants including Cargill, ADM, Bunge, and Louis Dreyfus Company, announced on December 25th that it would exit the Amazon Soy Moratorium—a voluntary pact that blocked soy purchases from newly deforested Amazon land.

The timing of this withdrawal is no coincidence. Brazil’s largest soy-producing state, Mato Grosso, implemented a new law on January 1st that strips tax benefits and public land access from any companies participating in the moratorium. This legislative pressure has effectively forced agribusinesses to choose between environmental commitments and financial incentives, creating what critics call economic blackmail against conservation efforts.

The Amazon Soy Moratorium, established in 2006, has been hailed as one of the most successful private-sector environmental initiatives in history, significantly reducing soy-driven deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. “It is a setback that practically pushes us back 15 to 20 years,” warned Mauricio Voivodic, executive director of WWF-Brasil. While ABIOVE has initiated the 30-day withdrawal process, individual companies may still choose to remain in the agreement independently, though this decision would come at considerable financial cost under the new state law.

This development threatens to undermine decades of progress in protecting the Amazon rainforest, a critical component of global climate stability.