"Revealed: US agribusiness giants’ soy linked to stolen indigenous land and murder in Brazil", 18 August 2022

...Cargill and Bunge...are sourcing soy from a farm in Brazil on land stolen from its original owners, the Guarani Kaiowá, and with a long history of violently suppressing the indigenous group’s efforts to assert their rights.

Our investigation reveals that flaws in Cargill’s stance on indigenous rights and Bunge’s traceability of indirect suppliers expose the two multibillion-dollar US firms' supply chains to illegalities and violent conflict, despite their stated human rights commitments.

...Brasília do Sul, a 9,700-ha soy farm in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, sits on Takuara, the ancestral land of the Guarani Kaiowá who were violently and illegally evicted decades ago. The community’s land rights have been brutally suppressed in recent years...[A]ggressive use of the courts by the farm’s owners – who have deforested the land almost completely – and inaction by the state have hindered the rightful restitution of Takuara to the Kaiowá...

Earthsight and De Olho nos Ruralistas’ field investigation discovered that Cargill’s facility in Caarapó, about 30km from Brasília do Sul, receives soy directly from the farm. Bunge’s processing unit in Dourados, a municipality a few kilometres north of Caarapó, meanwhile, buys soy from Brasília do Sul through intermediaries, making the farm one of Bunge’s indirect suppliers.

Imported soy is the leading contributor to Europe’s global deforestation footprint, and Bunge and Cargill are the EU’s main suppliers of the commodity. According to a recent report by Mighty Earth, they are also the traders most exposed to soy-related forest destruction in Brazil, totalling over 150,000 hectares of deforestation risk between them...

A short statement sent to Earthsight by Cargill (in full here) confirmed the firm sources soy from Brasília do Sul. The company said it “respects internationally recognized human rights throughout our own operations, supply chains and the communities where we do business.”

Strikingly, Cargill added:

“We have robust procedures to ensure we are respecting […] regulated indigenous areas, from which we do not source grains. According to our specific soy grievance procedure, we have confirmed that the process to demarcate indigenous land in the mentioned area of Brasília do Sul farm is not regulated yet, so there´s no illegality on the local produce. If we find any violation of our policies and commitments, the farmer will be immediately blocked from our supply chain”...

Cargill could have adopted a do-no-harm policy and cut ties with any farms involved in unresolved land disputes with indigenous and other traditional communities, instead of clinging on to misguided legal interpretations and making a mockery of its own human rights commitments...

Bunge’s response to Earthsight’s request for comment is also troubling (see it in full here). The firm stated it “does not have Brasília do Sul farm in its supplier data base.” Bunge did not clarify whether this means Brasília do Sul is not a supplier. It could simply be it has not been able to trace soy back to the farm.

...Bunge said it can now trace 64 per cent of its indirect suppliers in priority areas of the Cerrado biome. The company did not reply to Earthsight’s questions about what percentage of indirect suppliers it can trace in Mato Grosso do Sul or whether it has tried to trace indirect suppliers in the state at all.

...Over the last three months alone, three Guarani Kaiowá have been killed as a result of conflicts with farmers.

Bunge further stated its Brazilian soybean purchase contracts have “clauses that require its suppliers to respect and protect human rights” and that “it does not purchase soybeans from commercial farms overlapping indigenous reserves”...

...[B]etween 2014 and May 2022 Bunge exported more than 17 million tonnes of soy products to 16 countries in Europe with Spain, France and Germany as the main destinations. Cargill exported over 13.7 million tonnes, with Spain, Netherlands and the UK as the main markets. Both companies also export Brazilian soy products to the US.

In the UK, Cargill not only imports soy products from Brazil but also processes it into poultry feed and produces its own chicken products. Well-known retailers such as Tesco, Asda, Lidl, Nando’s and McDonald’s are among its buyers, according to an investigation by The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ)...

Nando’s told Earthsight it has been “working hard to implement” the UK Soy Manifesto since the TBIJ report’s publication. The firm said “it would be incorrect to say that Nando’s has a direct link to Cargill” and that it is “supplied in the UK by a company that is a customer of Cargill.”

[...]

Lidl stated it operates “with a fundamental respect for the human rights of the people we interact with and take this responsibility extremely seriously” and that it is “committed to implementing due diligence on this topic.” Read Nando’s and Lidl’s full statements here. Tesco, Asda and McDonald’s did not reply to Earthsight’s requests for comment...