Poisonings and displacements in Paraguay by the European meat industry 

Global Witness released a new report on Dec. 6 summarizing more than a year of research showing how agricultural exporters ADM and Cargill purchase soybeans from companies or producers implicated in at least seven human rights abuse cases against indigenous people and peasant communities in eastern Paraguay.

In the report titled “Tainted Meals: How Europe’s meat industry contributes to human rights abuses in Paraguay,” Global WitnessGlobal Witness found that soybeans from cases of pesticide poisoning, forced evictions of indigenous peoples, and even deaths ended up in silos belonging to agricultural exporters, mainly ADM and Cargill, who transport the soybeans on barges to their ports in Argentina and Uruguay.

The soybeans eventually reached two European farms from there: a chicken farm in England (2 Sisters) and a pig farm in Denmark (Danish Crown).

Both supply their meat to over 26 European brands and supermarkets, including Carrefour, KFC, and McDonald’s.

Global Witness is an international non-governmental organization.

Founded in 1993, it strives to break the link between commodity exploitation, conflict, poverty, corruption, and disregard for human rights.

For example, ADM buys soybeans from Hermanos Galhera, one of the companies denounced for illegally spraying agrochemicals without environmental licenses and for spraying pesticides in waterways in the area of Colonia Yerutí, Canindeyú Department.

In 2011, Rubén Portillo died from symptoms of pesticide poisoning, and 22 other people from the community were hospitalized. Cóndor Agrícola, the other company accused in the case, continues operating in the area.

Its impunity – a negligent prosecution like that of Jalil Rachid – ended in 2019 with a ruling against the Paraguayan state by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.

The commission concluded that the state failed to protect the right to life of Portillo, his family, and the entire Colonia Yerutí by failing to enforce laws related to the use of pesticides and investigate the deaths and poisonings.

It was the world’s first ruling in a case related to agrochemicals.

In 2021, another UN ruling was issued against Paraguay in a similar case, the Ava Guaraní community of Campo Agua’e, also in Canindeyú.

Illegal spraying by nearby soybean farmers forced families into exile, poisoning children, killing animals, contaminating water, and wiping out bees.

Agrochemicals also wreaked havoc on the Ava Guaraní culture, leading to the disappearance of corn and the resources necessary for their baptism ceremonies.

“The elimination of this ceremony leaves children without a rite crucial to the consolidation of their cultural identity,” the report concludes.

Issos Greenfield, one of the contractors responsible for the spraying, violated the minimum distances required by Paraguayan law by spraying within 10 meters of the local school and using unapproved agrochemicals.

All this happened while he received financial support from ADM and sold his soybeans to the US company.

Greenfield abandoned the site where the company Somax SA stands today, accused of failing to comply with the required buffer zones for the use of agrochemicals near Campo Agua’e.

Somax sold soybeans from this land to ADM, Cargill, and Bunge, whose silos are located less than 10 kilometers from the community of Ava Guaraní.

In addition to Yerutí and Campo Agua’e, Global Witness has identified five other cases in which, in addition to allegations of illegal use of agrochemicals, there are conflicts over the land on which the soybeans sold by agro exporters are grown.

This is the case of the Ava Guaraní community of Cerrito in Alto Paraná, which, after the expropriation of their lands during the so-called “March to the East,” tried to recover their ancestral lands during the transition.

But the lands are now in the hands of soybean farmer German Hutz.

According to the Paraguayan Indigenous Institute (INDI), which filed a formal complaint for irregularities, the indigenous community was illegally evicted three times in 2021.

For example, the eviction orders were issued by a prosecutor rather than a judge, depriving the community of any opportunity to assert its territorial claims,” Global Witness said.

Soybeans harvested in the area claimed by the Cerrito community are transported in trucks to a large silo owned by Hutz.

Local industry sources told Global Witness that ADM might be sourcing soybeans from this silo, which the US company did not deny when asked. When asked by Global Witness, Hutz did not comment on the allegations.

A bit further south of Cerrito is Ka’a Poty, another Ava Guaraní community affected by two forced evictions in 2021 that destroyed homes and the school.

In one of the evictions, a pregnant woman lost her baby to violence.

This happened even though they had a right to their land and a court ruling in their favor.

The community became known for living on the streets of Asunción for eight months before returning to their land in June 2022.

Tensions with the soybean farmers continued, however, and in August, community members raided one of the farms on the land they claimed.

They allegedly threatened, beat, and assaulted the residents, for which they have now been charged.

Amid the historical, legal, and political conflict, both Cargill and ADM purchase soybeans from Agrícola Entre Ríos and Agro Integración, the producers who work on the land claimed by the Ka’a Poty community.

The cases of Yerutí, Campo Agua’e, Cerrito, and Ka’a Poty are just some of the cases analyzed by Global Witness, which also show that Cargill or ADM – sometimes both at the same time – buy soybeans from companies involved in conflicts, such as Sexta Línea Colonia Yvype (San Pedro), Hugua Po’i and Loma Piro’y (Caaguazú).

The subsequent process, with more or fewer intermediaries, is quite similar: the agro exporters receive the soybeans in their silos, where it is mixed with the oilseeds purchased in the region.

The soybeans are then taken to private ports on the Paraguay or Paraná rivers, where it is transported by barge to the port of Rosario (Argentina) or Nueva Palmira (Uruguay).

From there, the soybeans are exported by ship to various locations. Global Witness verified that ADM and Cargill purchase Paraguayan soybeans in Europe from at least two of the largest farms on the continent.

One is 2 Sisters, an English chicken farm. The other is Danish Crown, a Danish pig farm.

The organization confirmed that they supply at least 26 brands, supermarkets, and retailers on the European continent, including KFC, Carrefour, and McDonald’s.

Tracing the soybeans supply chain is complex.

“It is an extremely opaque industry,” Global Witness notes in its report.

Before publishing the report, the organization tried to contact all the companies involved, from soybeans producers in Paraguay to buyers in Europe.

Most declined to respond.

None of those that responded (except ADM) rejected the findings.

On Sept. 19, ADM said its preliminary investigation concluded that “none of the lands or farms (polygons) owned by the suppliers that supply ADM overlap or interfere in any way with indigenous lands or settlements of smallholder communities.

None of the farms from which ADM sources soybeans have been displaced. However, the company has not explained how this was possible concerning Cerrito and Ka’a Poty, nor has it indicated that it consulted with affected indigenous communities.

Global Witness notes that “ADM’s grievance protocols require the company to engage with relevant stakeholders and enter its public grievance register within two weeks of receiving information about violations of its policies.”

ADM had also promised to publish the document on its “preliminary investigation.”

However, the agricultural exporter has not provided any such document to investigators.

The opacity of the supply chain itself makes it impossible to track whether soybeans grown in Yerutí end up specifically in Danish Crown’s chickens and pigs or the meat supplies of, say, McDonald’s.

But this opacity puts all companies in the supply chain at risk of complicity. “In this case, all of the companies named in this report would be directly complicit in the human rights abuses affecting indigenous and peasant communities in Paraguay”.

They would violate international business standards such as the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (2011) and the OECD Guidelines on Corporate Responsibility for Development and Due Diligence.

They would also be responsible for preventing and addressing human rights abuses by their suppliers.

They would also violate the principle of free, prior, and informed consent, a fundamental aspect of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007), which Paraguay has incorporated into its legislation since 2018.

The mere suspicion that soybeans from Yerutí or Ka’a Poty could end up in European meat shows the failure of European companies’ “self-regulatory responsibility”.

“Through their own negligence, European corporate actors after traders have also contributed for years to violations such as those we have documented in Paraguay,” the researchers emphasize.

The reasonable suspicion that the soybeans that Paraguay exports to Europe are contaminated with displacements and deaths from agrochemical poisoning is also bad business for our country.

That’s what Marcos Orellana, UN rapporteur on toxics and human rights, said after he visited Paraguay.

For Orellana, the country has “excellent environmental laws,” but he said the problem is that they are not respected.

A clear example is Law 3742 on pesticides, which regulates the use of agrochemicals, such as minimum distances around schools and communities. In 2021, we demonstrated that at least 90 schools and 7,500 students were at risk of poisoning from plantations that did not comply with the law.

And we used satellite imagery to show how the National Seed Service (SENAVE) lied in its report when it denied the findings.

When asked by Global Witness about the findings of the investigation, Orellana also warned that Paraguay is “at risk of being isolated from international markets due to producers who do not comply with the law, as there is an increasing tendency to ensure that supply chains comply with environmental and human rights standards.”

Some soybean and livestock associations are already resisting the central bank’s new regulation requiring public and private banks to conduct environmental compliance analyses to make production loans.

And Lula’s interest in promoting the EU-Mercosur agreement again after his election victory in Brazil means that the Paraguayan agribusiness industry will face strong resistance to continue selling soybeans, coal, and leather in the common European market.