Stepping up market demand for responsible soy
There is need to follow-up action by downstream chain partners to materialize the commitments to deforestation free supply chains into concrete market demand for responsible soy.
This was concluded from the 5th Workshop on Responsible Soy & Deforestation in Brussels, organised by Fediol and Fefac.
The workshop attracted experts from soy value chain partners, public authorities and other stakeholders and showcased initiatives by (soy) farmer organisations in Brazil and Argentina to promote legal compliance and good agricultural practices while EU representatives from the soy supply chain showed the efforts made to foster the mainstream market transition of responsible soy production and trade.
Representatives from the Brazilian government and the soy production chain presented the evolution of environmental legislation and its stringent enforcement over the past 10 years, with the ongoing mandatory implementation of the Rural Environmental Registry (CAR) and its sophisticated analytical tools as the key instruments to tackle illegal deforestation.
The workshop pointed to the need for follow-up action by downstream chain partners to materialize the commitments to deforestation free supply chains into concrete market demand for responsible soy. In addition, increased engagement from EU and national governments was solicited to consider targeted environmental payments to provide for the necessary incentives to soy farmers to protect native vegetation beyond legal requirements. This is particularly the case for all agricultural activities in the Cerrado Biome, where the challenges regards to the native vegetation are very different compared to the Amazon Biome.
The Earth Innovation Institute representative congratulated the members of the MoU partnership on establishing the first large-scale collaborative approach towards sustainable jurisdictional sourcing, which may provide a vehicle for rewarding environmental performances by farmers thanks to initiatives such as the FEFAC Soy Sourcing Guidelines and the Soja Plus programme. IDH shared its perspective on a step-wise approach to sustainable sourcing, which starts with moving farmers into legal compliance.
