Brazilian farmers' lobbies divided over EU's Amazon deforestation complaints
Brazil's largest lobbying group for soy farmers, Aprosoja, has severed ties with the Brazilian Agribusiness Association (Abag) over its complaints about what they see as excessive deforestation of the Amazon rainforest.
Abag was one of roughly 230 NGOs, businesses and associations to call on far-right Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro to do something to curtail the rate at which the Amazon rainforest is declining.
Their departure shows how divisive the protection of the rainforest and battling climate change can be in the Brazilian farming sector.
Environmental concerns in Europe for importing Brazilian products linked with deforestation heave threatened to derail free trade agreements between the European Union and the Mercosur bloc which would be a serious blow to farmers who could greatly benefit from increased exports.
Similar sentiments about the ratification of this trade deal split the EU last August, when wildfires raged across the Amazon, in which then-EC president Donald Tusk urged Bolsonaro to act. The forest fires were eventually extinguished by heavy rains in late October - nearly three months after they had started - as more news of heavy deforestation poured in to make way for more land for Brazil's agriculture industry.
Bolsonaro has been accused of both denying deforestation is an issue, as well as his general ignorance of the scientific consensus on climate change.
Brazil's environmental minister also met with a US-based climate denial advocacy group last September, which levied more scrutiny at the Bolsonaro administration for not doing enough to tackle climate change.
However, Bolsonaro did send the military in to protect the Amazon against illegal deforestation on the Bolivian border back in May.
Many of the biggest farmers and commodity traders say, marginal producers, who do not represent the industry's mainstream, are driving illegal deforestation.
Some of them, including Bolsonaro himself, blame Brazil's "anti-environmental" image on a smear campaign launched by NGOs. However, environmental activists claim that Bolsonaro's policies weaken environmental enforcement embolden illegal farmers, mining companies and ranchers to continue cutting down vast swathes of the rainforest.
Aprosoja President Bartolomeu Braz Pereira told Latin American news outlet, Mercopress, that Abag was playing politics by siding with non-government organisations.
He said: “NGOs have no interest whatsoever in preserving the environment,” Pereira said. By allying with NGOs, Abag was complicit in “denigrating the image of rural producers.”
Abag would not comment on any members leaving the association but added that it should not be a cause for concern.
According to preliminary data from Brazilian government space research agency, Inpe, deforestation in the country has risen by 34% in the last 12 months through to July when compared to the 12 months prior.
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