Featured image: Archer Daniels Midland soy silos in Mato Grosso. On the side of the BR-163 highway, where Amazon rainforest once dominated, one sees little except soybeans and the large silos owned by transnational commodities companies. Photo by Thaís Borges
Over the last 40 years the north of the state of Mato Grosso has profoundly changed. This far-reaching transformation — matched almost nowhere else in the world — is largely due to the rapid expansion of industrial agribusiness, particularly soybean production, which has destroyed huge swathes of savanna and tropical Amazon rainforest.
“There are certain regions, near Brasnorte [to the west of Sinop], for example, where you can look completely around, 360 degrees, and not see a single tree,” says anthropologist Rinaldo Arruda, a lecturer at the Catholic University (PUC) in São Paulo.
Map showing the extensive deforestation occurring in the northern part of Mato Grosso between 1986 and 2016. In just 40 years, the advance of agribusiness has radically reduced forest coverage. Map by Maurício Torres
There is much talk about the prosperity that agribusiness has brought to Mato Grosso state, but, according to Andreia Fanzeres, coordinator of the indigenous rights program at the NGO Opan (Operação Amazônia Nativa), the traditional communities, which had inhabited the region for centuries, were not consulted, nor have they benefited from the rise of soy: “The indigenous communities and the family farmers, rural communities in general, were always outside the decision-making process as to what type of development they would have”.
According to Antônio Ioris, lecturer in human geography at the University of Cardiff, who has carried out research into the advance of agribusiness in Mato Grosso, the start of this growth period was heavily supported by the federal government’s agricultural research body, Embrapa: “New technologies developed by Embrapa produced solutions for the acidic [nutrient-poor tropical] soils and other problems. The farming sector went through a crisis in the 1980s. Then soy arrived and ‘rescued’ it”.
The large-scale meteoric expansion of soy came at the end of the 1990s, when, Ioris says, “it benefitted from both the [global] commodities boom and the liberalization of the [Brazilian] economy”. Soy production is highly mechanized, and works most efficiently on very large plantations, so that led to the concentration of land ownership in Mato Grosso state among a small number of wealthy companies and individuals.
Where savanna and rainforest once stood, now only soybeans grow. The Brazilian ruralista agribusiness lobby’s goal is for large-scale soy plantations to penetrate even deeper into the Amazon rainforest. Photo by Thaís Borges
Then as commodities like soy boomed on the world market, the Brazilian economy became increasingly dependent on the millions of dollars brought in by soy exports. Ioris explains: “This gave the [large-scale Mato Grosso] soy farmers enough political clout to demand the paving of the roads and the creation of further logistic support, including waterways.” He concludes: “Today agribusiness blackmails the country”.
Driving along the BR-163 highway through the largely depopulated Mato Grosso countryside, one sees evidence of the new bosses in the region — the multinationals, who sell the farmers their seeds and chemicals, and who buy the farmers’ produce. Rising above a sea of soy are the occasional soybean silos, emblazoned with the logos of the multinational commodities companies that now control the region: Bunge, Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) and Cargill.
There too are silos belonging to Amaggi, a powerful Brazilian commodities player. The Amaggi company was built by André Maggi and is now run by his family, including his son, Blairo Maggi. Once known as the “Soy King” and formerly the governor of Mato Grosso state, Blairo Maggi was chosen last year as Brazil’s agriculture minister by President Temer. Maggi’s rise in influence has paralleled the rise in power of the bancada ruralista, the industrial agribusiness lobby that today holds sway over much of the National Congress.
After accumulating a fortune through planting, processing and exporting soy, Amaggi has now joined the big players on the international market, cultivating a particularly close relation with Bunge, with which it jointly owns grain terminals in Miritituba, the new commodities port on the lower Tapajós River. The soy crop now flows by truck from north Mato Grosso down newly paved BR-163, to Miritituba, where the commodity is transferred to barges for the trip down the Tapajós to the Amazon River and on to foreign ports, especially in China.
On the side of the BR-163, one sees little except soybeans and the large silos owned by multinational companies, as well as those of the largest Brazilian soybean farming group, Amaggi. Much of the soy crop is bound for China. Photo by Thaís Borges
Agribusiness as usual
Some credit soy production with bringing “modernity” and “development” to Mato Grosso. Aprosoja, the soy farmers’ trade association, speaks of “the positive socioeconomic impact of soy farming”. It claims that for each person directly engaged in soy farming, another eleven jobs are created, “taking into account all the employment produced along the whole productive chain”. Agriculture Minister Blairo Maggi, when he was a senator for Mato Grosso state in 2012, told the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper: “If it weren’t for soy, Mato Grosso would still be backward.… Today the soy farmer gets a 30 percent return on the capital he has invested.”
But for others, the 40-year soy expansion serves as just one more example in a long historical process in which the Brazilian rainforest has been cut down and rural indigenous and traditional populations disenfranchised — replaced by agribusiness monocultures owned by a very few who make the lion’s share of profit.
The sociologist José de Souza Martins, whose writings have become essential reading for Amazon scholars, showed that, while the military government in the 1970s spoke a great deal about attracting landless farmers to the Amazon (under the slogan “the land without people for the people without land”), powerful economic groups were the main beneficiaries of the money it poured into the region.
While the generals spoke of “occupying the empty land”, many large-scale landowners set up large cattle ranches that drove out many more people — including the “invisible” indigenous communities, rubber-tappers, and fisher folk — than they ever brought into the region.
Cândido Neto da Cunha, an agronomist employed by INCRA (the National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform), believes that what is happening with soybeans now is, to a large extent, just a continuation of the military programs. “Though ‘development’ has replaced ‘national security’ as the ideological driving force, the state is creating the same negative social consequences — rural exodus, deforestation and precarious labor conditions — through its support for agribusiness.”
Land ownership concentration in just a few hands, caused by the arrival of industrial agribusiness in the region, even impacts lands that were once set aside for agrarian reform, creating tension between small-scale and large-scale farmers. Photo by Thaís Borges
Soy’s unlevel playing fields
In its march north, soy appears in some surprising places. One of these is at the Wesley Manoel dos Santos agrarian reform settlement, created by INCRA in 1977. Located 70 kilometers (43 miles) northwest of Sinop, this settlement exemplifies the serious challenges faced by Brazil’s small family farms.
The land was originally bought up by the Brazilian subsidiary of the German company, Mercedes Benz, at the end of the 1960s. According to research by Odimar João Peripolli, a lecturer at Mato Grosso State University, the company set up ten separate subsidiary companies to get around the legal limits on land ownership. Each subsidiary bought “40,000, 50,000 or even 60,000 hectares, so that in the end it [Mercedes Benz] had acquired about 500,000 hectares (1.2 million acres). The whole large estate became known as Gleba Mercedes (the Mercedes Holding)”.
The company was able to use its clout as a large-scale landowner to gain hefty federal benefits, mostly tax rebates from SUDAM, the Amazonia development agency. This money was supposed to be invested into the land, but wasn’t, according to testimonies gathered by Peripolli. The company’s vast holdings were “never, effectively, occupied by the company.” Mercedes eventually sold Gleba Mercedes to a São Paulo company, which in turn sold it to INCRA, which created an agrarian reform settlement with plots for 507 families.
But it’s not easy for a small-scale farm settlement to compete economically in a remote region where the government is actively promoting large-scale agribusiness. Lacking sufficient federal technical assistance, the settlement’s 500+ families tried several survival strategies. In the beginning, they reared dairy cattle and sold milk and cheese in the town of Sinop. Though this was the nearest market, it still took three hours to transport dairy products there — and that was when it wasn’t raining.
The venture went well at first, but then ran into government obstacles. Settler Jair Marcelo da Silva, known as Capixava, relates how the small-scale dairy farmers were very careful with hygiene, because it was their principle to only sell products that they themselves consumed. However, their common-sense approach didn’t satisfy the authorities. “The food safety bodies don’t think like ordinary people, they think very differently”, says Capixava.
To prepare the land for mechanized agribusiness, the forest must first be cut, then the roots of the felled trees must be removed — a labor and time intensive process that small-scale farmers are often unable to afford. As a result, large-scale landowners often pay for the work, while also largely gaining control of the land for soy production. Photo by Thaís Borges
The authorities made unrealistic regulatory demands on the small-scale farmers, and when they couldn’t satisfy those demands, the settlers were banned from selling their produce in Sinop. It was the end of their dreams. “I had six cows, from which I took on an average 90 liters of milk a day”, explains Capixava. “What was I supposed to do with this milk [if the federal authorities wouldn’t let me sell it]? What do you think? We gave it to the pigs! Just imagine that!”
The settlers tried rearing pigs and chickens, but once again they fell afoul of food safety regulators. Lacking any other income, some settlers trained to operate the sophisticated machines used by the large-scale farmers who had the money to comply with government health and safety rules. Others worked as day laborers. Women found jobs as maids in Sinop, leaving their husbands to look after the children.
In time, all attempts to use their land to earn a living were largely abandoned.
A sign welcomes drivers to the city of Sorriso, Brazil’s agribusiness capital. While soy production has brought prosperity and development to some in Mato Grosso, it has brought misery and poverty to others, including the indigenous and traditional people who lived here when the land was covered in rainforest and savanna. Photo by Thaís Borges
(Leia essa matéria em português no The Intercept Brasil. You can also read Mongabay’s series on the Tapajós Basin in Portuguese at The Intercept Brasil)
Waves of loggers are invading the territory of one of the most vulnerable peoples on the planet. The Indians, known as the Last of the Kawahiva, are the survivors of a larger tribe who have been killed or died of disease.
One group of loggers was recently caught by agents from FUNAI, Brazil’s Indigenous Affairs department. However, as the loggers have local political support, and FUNAI agents do not have the power to arrest suspects, the men were released. Further waves of loggers have since entered the territory.
The crisis has raised concerns among campaigners that the tribe and their rainforest home could be destroyed entirely.
In April 2016, the Brazilian Minister of Justice signed a decree to create a protected indigenous territory on the tribe’s land to keep loggers and other intruders out. This was a big step forward for the Kawahiva’s lands and lives, and followed pressure from Survival’s supporters around the world. However, the decree has yet to be properly enacted and now the small team who are working to protect the land are facing severe budget cuts.
Jair Candor, an experienced FUNAI agent, said: ”The Kawahiva are trapped. If any contact happens, it will be devastating for them. The only way to ensure their survival is to map out the land and put in place a permanent land protection team. Otherwise, they will be relegated to the history books, just like so many other tribal peoples of this region.”
Oscar-winning actor Mark Rylance has narrated a film to highlight the tribe’s plight.
Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said: “Brazil committed to protecting the Kawahiva’s land in April, but with the government dragging its heels an urgent and horrific humanitarian crisis is unfolding. The Kawahiva’s land is still being invaded and their forest is still being destroyed. It’s time for Brazil to take action as it promised, before the genocide of an entire people is complete.”
As the Rio Olympics kick off, Brazil has blocked the construction of a controversial dam in the heart of the Amazon rainforest.
The São Luiz dam, planned for the Tapajós river, threatened to flood the Munduruku Indians’ forest and force many off their land.
The Munduruku, like all indigenous peoples, depend on their land for their survival, but industrialized society is trying to steal it and plunder its resources in the name of “progress” and “civilization.” The Munduruku have been firmly opposing the São Luiz dam, and dozens of others planned for the region.
The dam’s environmental licence was shelved this week following the Munduruku’s resistance, pressure from public prosecutors and experts on the ground, and reports by Brazil’s Indigenous Affairs Department and Environment Ministry.
Alongside their struggle to stop the dams, the Munduruku have embarked on a landmark mission to map out their ancestral territory and protect it from illegal miners and loggers. The Brazilian government has failed to uphold its constitutional duty to do this, leaving the land open to destruction.
Munduruku leader Suberanino Saw said, “Our struggle is dangerous, but we know we will win.”
Together with tribes across Brazil, the Munduruku are also protesting plans to change the law and drastically weaken indigenous peoples’ land rights. One of these plans, known as “PEC 215,” would give anti-Indian landowners and others the chance to block the recognition of new indigenous territories – and it might even enable them to break up existing ones.
Survival’s “Stop Brazil’s Genocide” campaign, launched in April 2016 for the run-up to the Olympics, is galvanizing global support for the Indians’ resistance against PEC 215, and calling for the protection of the land of uncontacted tribes, the most vulnerable peoples on the planet.
On the eve of the Olympics, a tribe in Brazil has made a powerful statement to the ranchers who are destroying their land and subjecting them to genocidal violence and racism.
This follows a recent wave of violence and evictions, and the death of a seven-month-old baby in Apy Ka’y community in July.
Aty Guasu, the organization of Brazil’s Guarani tribe, said: “You are killers and you continue to attack our tekohá [ancestral lands]. But we won’t retreat from the fight for our lands which were stolen from us. Every time you kill one of us, we will be stronger in our struggle. Every time you shoot at us, we will take a step forward. And for every grave, we will reoccupy more land. We guarantee this.”
Aty Guasu has also produced a video compiling footage of recent instances of brutality against the Guarani and featuring graphic footage.
Many Guarani Indians have been forced to live on roadsides and are attacked by gunmen or forcibly evicted if they try to reoccupy their ancestral land. In July, Guarani families were evicted from their ancestral land by almost 100 heavily-armed police officers. A baby subsequently died of malnutrition and exposure, as Guarani houses were bulldozed and the community was forced back into makeshift encampments on the roadside.
Earlier in 2016, several other Guarani communities were attacked by ranchers’ gunmen. One attack in Tey’i Jusu community led to one Guarani man being killed and several others – including a twelve year old boy – being hospitalized.
Over the past few decades, most of the Guarani’s land has been stolen by destructive agribusiness, and they live by the side of the road and in overcrowded reservations. Guarani children starve and many of their leaders have been assassinated. Hundreds of Guarani men, women and children have killed themselves, and the Guarani Kaiowá suffer the highest suicide rate in the world.
In a video made with equipment provided through Survival’s Tribal Voice project, Eliseu Guarani, a Guarani leader, said: “Brazil will host the Olympic games this year, the government will be on the world stage and is trying to hide the situation we indigenous people face…We Guarani are being attacked, our leaders are being killed… and our land is not being returned to us, but these Olympic Games won’t show any of that. People around the world will watch these games and cheer and they’ll also be cheering our suffering.”
In April Survival International launched its “Stop Brazil’s Genocide” campaign for the run-up to the Rio 2016 Olympics, to draw attention to the situation facing tribes like the Guarani. Their lands, resources and labor are being stolen in the name of “progress” and “civilization.”
On July 31st Survival supporters demonstrated outside the Brazilian embassy in London.
The campaign is calling for the Brazilian government to uphold the law by protecting the Guarani, demarcating their land, prosecuting murderers and providing food for starving communities until they get back their ancestral land. It is also concerned with uncontacted tribes – the most vulnerable peoples on the planet – and PEC 215, a proposed change to Brazilian law which would undermine tribal land rights and lead to the break up and exploitation of existing indigenous territories.
Survival’s Stephen Corry said: “An urgent and horrific humanitarian crisis is unfolding across Brazil while the media’s eyes are diverted by the Olympic Games. The Guarani’s situation is not an anomaly, it’s the continuation of a centuries-old process of land theft, genocidal violence, slavery and racism. Scores of indigenous people are dying and being killed, tribes across the country are being annihilated. It’s difficult to exaggerate the severity of this crisis which will only end when tribal peoples are respected as contemporary societies and their human rights protected. Brazil needs to act now, before more tribes are destroyed.”
Almost 100 heavily-armed police officers evicted the Apy Ka’y Guarani community, whose ancestral lands have been destroyed for industrial-scale farming.
The Indians had been forced to live by the side of a highway for ten years, during which eight people were run over and killed, and another died from pesticide poisoning.
In 2013 the community re-occupied a small patch of their ancestral land. They have now been evicted from it again, after a judge granted the landowner’s request for an eviction order, despite having received appeals from the Guarani, from their allies in Brazil, and from thousands of Survival supporters around the world.
The Guarani of Apy Ka’y are now back on the side of the highway.
Another video shows armed police overseeing the eviction of the nine Guarani Kaiowá families. Tribal leader Damiana Cavanha is shown denouncing the eviction, insisting on her people’s right to defend their lives, protect their lands and determine their own futures.
She said: “We do not accept this. I will stay here, this is my right. We have our rights. It’s not only the white people that have rights, the Guarani Kaiowá and the indigenous peoples also have rights. So many of us have died, so many people have been killed by the gunmen… Let us stay here, we have our Tekoha [ancestral land] and I will return to my Tekoha.”
In June 2016, ranchers’ gunmen attacked another Guarani community at Tey’i Jusu. One man was killed and several others, including a twelve year old boy, severely injured.
Most of the Guarani’s land has been stolen from them. Brazil’s agri-business industry has been trying to keep tribal people away from their territories for decades. They subject them to genocidal violence and racism so they can steal their lands, resources and labor in the name of “progress” and “civilization.”
The situation facing the Guarani is one of the most urgent and horrific humanitarian crises of our time. In April 2016, Survival International launched its “Stop Brazil’s Genocide” campaign to draw the crisis to global attention in the run-up to the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.
Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said: “This is terrible news, and it is tragically all too typical of the appalling situation facing the Guarani in Brazil. We cannot sit idly by and watch the destruction of an entire people. If the Guarani’s legal right to live on their land is not respected and upheld, they will be destroyed.”
