🌾 Say it ain’t soy

For nearly two decades, most traders buying soybeans produced in Brazil’s Amazon region required the grain to meet a strict condition: it had to come from land deforested before 2008. The rule went further than Brazilian law, which allows farmers in the Amazon to legally clear part of their property for agriculture.

The requirement is at the heart of the Soy Moratorium, a private agreement signed in 2006 by grain traders, global companies, environmental groups and the Brazilian government. Introduced as Brazil’s soybean boom drew international scrutiny for its role in threatening the world’s largest rainforest, the pact became one of the most influential private-sector efforts to curb deforestation. Now, it appears to be on its last legs…

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