RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Brazil’s Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply is going to establish the Social and Environmental Adequacy Index to qualify the meat, soy and wood production chains in the states of Amazonas, Mato Grosso, Pará, Rondônia, and Tocantins.
The initiative, to favor the conservation of the Amazon Forest, is part of a technical cooperation project between Brazil and Germany for the period between 2020 and 2024.
The index will be based on the National Rural Environmental Registry System (CAR), provided for in the Brazilian Forestry Code, the transition guides for controlling the circulation of animals raised for beef, and information from monitoring the exploitation of slave-like labor.
The cooperation agreement, signed on Monday, December 9th, at the Ministry’s headquarters in Brasília, involves a German donation of €25.5 million (US$28.3 million) and a counterpart of €12 million from the Brazilian government.
According to Minister Tereza Cristina, the project aims to “create tools to monitor the social and environmental situation of these production chains, generate added value to the products of sectors with good indices of sustainability and provide technical and managerial assistance to producers with low indices of sustainability”.
“Whoever is doing well, will gain momentum to have more quality and income. Those who are below the acceptable indicators will need to have the help of the State and technical assistance to go beyond this line, to be productive,” explained Minister Tereza Cristina.
According to the minister, people must be brought in and made aware that technology will give them an income.
“With this income, it will be possible for them to preserve and enjoy another standard of living, but within technology,” the minister said, emphasizing that the goal is not to exclude any producer, but to ensure that everyone works with no deforestation, with sustainability and respecting the laws.
New meat
The project begins with a focus on meat production in the states of the Legal Amazon region. “This cooperation agreement is very important for cattle ranching. I want to baptize it as ‘new meat’,” said Tereza Cristina. According to the minister, the initiative will help producers and open up markets.
Germany’s ambassador to Brazil, Georg Witshel, acknowledged that the free trade agreement with Mercosur will increase Brazil’s meat exports to the European Union. According to him, this trade depends on respect for the rules of the Paris Agreement (2015), which, among other things, provides protection against climate change.
“We endorse the Ministry’s efforts to develop technological solutions and promote a rural extension of excellence, with the aim of improving sustainability in agricultural production. We are confident that this will improve the positioning and market opportunities for Brazil’s agricultural products and, at the same time, contribute to a pairing with the goals for the conservation of natural resources and the Amazon rainforest,” said the diplomat.
According to data from the Ministry of Economy, frozen beef is equivalent to 1.1 percent of Brazil’s exports to the European Union, cellulose to 6.2 percent, and soybeans to almost 13 percent – plus bran and residues from the extraction of soybean oil and crushed soybeans, according to data from 2018.