{"id":50363602,"date":"2023-02-24T15:28:42","date_gmt":"2023-02-24T15:28:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dialogochino.net\/?p=63602"},"modified":"2023-06-08T13:38:56","modified_gmt":"2023-06-08T12:38:56","slug":"363602-how-soy-took-over-family-settlements-in-the-amazon","status":"publish","type":"photo_story","link":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/uncategorized\/363602-how-soy-took-over-family-settlements-in-the-amazon\/","title":{"rendered":"How soy took over family settlements in the Amazon"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Afaded sign on the corner between the MT-110 highway and a dirt road signals \u201cSector 1\u201d. When I turn left, I enter the Pingo D\u2019\u00c1gua agrarian settlement in the municipality of Quer\u00eancia, Mato Grosso state. I drive around 10 kilometres alongside soybean plantations that stretch as far as the eye can see, until I reach one lot that stands out in this monotonous landscape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The road towards the property is skirted by trees, the rare shade softening the intense heat of the region. I realise that they are rubber trees, typical of the Amazon, from which latex is extracted to produce rubber. Entering the property, I pass through cassava and fruit trees \u2013 pineapple, avocado and the cherry-like acerola \u2013 until I stop in front of a house surrounded by flowers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Rubber<\/div>
Raw liquid latex trickles down from diagonal rows in the bark of a rubber tree on the Pertiles\u2019 land. The technique is widespread among communities of the Amazon, from which the family farmers have taken inspiration (Image: Fl\u00e1via Milhorance)<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Danilo Pertile, 73, and his wife Evanir Pertile, 69, receive me on their large veranda. They tell me how the settlement, originally aimed at poor family farmers to produce mainly food crops, has been transformed over time. \u201cIt started with small plantations, then they expanded, and the small farmers sold their plots,\u201d says Evanir. \u201cNow, it is practically all soybean.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quer\u00eancia<\/a> has almost everything that the soybean industry needs: flat land, good soil, infrastructure and the presence of major banks and traders, such as Bunge, Cargill and Amaggi. \u201cWhat was lacking?\u201d economist and biologist Rafael Barbieri asks. \u201cLand. And where was there land? In the settlements.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With agricultural land in the municipality becoming scarce, the soy industry has turned its sights on family farmers, who live in and work the land and typically bring in an annual income<\/a> of less than 500,000 Brazilian reais (US$ 97,500), according to Barbieri, author of a study<\/a> for the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM) on what has been happening in Pingo D\u2019\u00c1gua.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cSoybean has been occupying the settlements very aggressively, which is a great concern,\u201d says Richard Smith, regional coordinator of IPAM, which aims to encourage alternative production chains. \u201cOur mission is not to outdo soybean plantations, but to save family farming.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Capital and soy producers commonly come from outside the region, sometimes from outside the country. Meanwhile, farming families have moved away from growing food or migrated to less expensive regions<\/a> \u2013 or tried to resist the pressures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSoybean is making things harder and harder,\u201d says Danilo, whose small farming business focuses on producing and selling a variety of fruits, cassava, rubber and heart of palm, a white vegetable harvested from palm trees. As well as real estate speculation, Danilo explains that, with fewer family farmers, the cooperative structures that used to support the settlement have weakened. Investments focus on soybean farming \u2013 dozens of storage silos have sprung up in Quer\u00eancia in recent years \u2013 while credit lines for smallholder farmers have dwindled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Soy<\/div>
A vast silo and soybean processing facility marks the landscape on arrival in Quer\u00eancia (Image: Fl\u00e1via Milhorance)<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

On top of this, planes fly over the nearby soybean fields spraying toxic agrochemicals. \u201cThey also pass over us,\u201d says Danilo. Although the couple\u2019s production is not organic, they say they apply as little pesticide as possible. With the intensification of aerial spraying, they have noticed some of their fruit species producing less than before or even, in Evanir\u2019s words, \u201cshrivelling to death.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lost forest<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It was not always like this. The couple arrived in Quer\u00eancia two decades ago, leaving a disputed rural area in Brazil\u2019s south to try a piece of land in the midwest. \u201cIt was almost all forest,\u201d recalls Danilo. \u201cThere were just a few residents and cattle,\u201d adds Evanir.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The<\/div>
The Pertiles inspect an acerola tree, which produces a cherry-like fruit and is native to Brazil. The couple grow various fruits and vegetables on their land (Image: Fl\u00e1via Milhorance)<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

As in other areas of the Amazon<\/a>, the National Institute for Colonisation and Agrarian Reform (INCRA), a federal government agency, has distributed land to farmers to boost the occupation of the region, where Indigenous peoples<\/a> have inhabited the biome for millennia and, in many cases, been expelled from their territories. Created in 1970, during the era of Brazil\u2019s military dictatorship, INCRA still settles small farmers on unproductive properties or unused public lands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1998, INCRA distributed plots of land on a 40,000-hectare property to about 550 families, among them the Pertiles. In that year, pastures occupied only 4% of Pingo D\u2019\u00c1gua, according to our analysis based on the Mapbiomas<\/a> platform. The rest was Amazon forest. Within just six years, cattle ranching had already taken over half the area, destroying the native forest with it. But the biggest transformation was yet to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the decades, federal government incentives for intensive agriculture and the progressive increase of exports, mainly to China, led to a huge expansion<\/a> of soybean production spreading from southern to central Brazil. Several cities in the midwest grew in the wake of international market demand for soy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among them was Quer\u00eancia, which has been among the 10 largest<\/a> soybean growers in Brazil for at least a decade. Soybean had already taken over most of the agricultural areas in the municipality \u2013 and soon it overflowed into the settlements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/div>
Land use change in the Pingo D\u2019\u00c1gua settlement, Mato Grosso, from 1998 to 2021 (Images: Google Earth, Landsat\/Copernicus; Data: Mapbiomas; Graphic: Di\u00e1logo Chino)<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

In Pingo D\u2019\u00c1gua, soy cultivation progressively advanced until it overtook livestock in 2018, in terms of land area occupied. Since then, soybean fields have continued to expand as pastures and forests shrink. In 2021, soybean alone occupied more than half the settlement, with native forest remaining on less than 15%, according to data from Mapbiomas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The phenomenon surprised Barbieri, since soybean is usually more viable in large areas \u2013 those over 200 hectares \u2013 where the gain in scale reduces the costs and risks associated with monoculture. But the example of Pingo D\u2019\u00c1gua is no longer an exception in the country: similar processes<\/a> have occurred in other agro-export hubs, including in other settlements around Quer\u00eancia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Challenge to food production<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Family farmers play an important role in Brazil\u2019s food supply. Although the exact extent of their participation is not clear<\/a>, they are responsible for the majority of production of vegetables, fruits, cow\u2019s milk and meat (excluding beef and chicken), according to our analysis of the 2017 Agricultural Census, the most recent available. But the number of properties occupied by family farming has decreased by 9.5%<\/a> compared to 2006.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This means that the gains soy is making on smallholder farming raises food security concerns. Around 60% of Brazilian soy is exported, according to data from the National Supply Company (CONAB), a state agricultural organisation. The beans that remain in Brazil aren\u2019t consumed directly by humans, in the form of tofu or soy milk, for example, according to a survey<\/a> by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, but are mainly used for animal feed and biodiesel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n