How much longer will you continue to import soy from Brazil?
German farmers feed their animals with soy from Brazil. Massive rainforest is being cut down for soy cultivation. It could also be different.
The soy plantations in Brazil are eating their way further and further into the rainforest
More than three decades ago, the farmer Wilhelm Eckei made a decision, because of which all his neighbors and colleagues declared him completely crazy. What a time: It's 1989, the Berlin Wall is still standing and the Greens have been in the Bundestag for just six years.
Eckei is preparing to take over the family business in the Sauerland from his father and dreams of a different type of agriculture. He wants to turn the farm completely inside out: more sustainability, more attention to the welfare of the animals, no antibiotics, no feed from abroad. Eckei becomes a pioneer, is the first farmer in Germany to adopt the so-called Neuland program for animal-friendly husbandry. And thus, if you will, the first organic farmer in this country.
"The population is ready to dig deeper into their pockets for other agriculture too" - Wilhelm Eckei
"That was when the criticism of keeping animals in the stables began, the cows and pigs didn't even see daylight at the time, and we wanted to take a different path than towards more and more growth. It's good that we didn't get all the gossip in the village back then have, we have certainly been panned quite a bit, "says the now 59-year-old with a laugh.
Supermarket operators are now also rethinking
Today 280 pigs and 35 cattle romp around on his farm, kept in a species-appropriate manner with plenty of space to run around, the pigs grope on straw, the cows graze on a lush green meadow. 1000 hens lay their eggs every day for direct sale, plus 800 broilers, which, like all animals, are slaughtered by a regional butcher.
"Neither party managed to protect us from this ruinous world market" - Wilhelm Eckei
Eckei, initially ridiculed as exotic, has initiated an ecological movement that not even discount supermarkets are refusing to do now. "Aldi and Lidl now also believe that people want something that is produced in an alternative manner on their plate." After all, every eighth farmer in Germany has switched to organic farming today.
Organic farmer Eckei produces protein feed himself
This green wave also includes providing the animals with locally produced feed. And not with soy from Brazil, for whose cultivation massive rainforest is cleared. Wilhelm Eckei proudly explains the recipe for his protein mix: "Beans, peas, grain and potatoes. And rapeseed meal. We press the rapeseed for the oil and the leftovers go into the cattle feed."
Conventional agriculture, on the other hand, continues to rely on soy from Brazil, the imported animal feed is simply cheaper. "The soy from South America is a very good feed, because the farmer can raise his pigs cheaply with little money." In-house production costs Eckei time and money every day, and the additional costs are passed on to the consumer.
German pigs eat Brazilian soy
The organic farmer, who also employed a Syrian farm worker on his farm after the refugee crisis in 2015, has one thing above all else: He doesn't want a single tree to be felled and climate change to be accelerated by keeping animals. He explains to the school classes who visit his farm that Germany is depriving farmers in South America of their livelihoods because of the feed for its animals, because they are expropriated and expelled by the large corporations.
"For most farmers in Germany, Brazil and the problems faced by the people there are far away," says Eckei, who has been involved in the "Working Group on Rural Agriculture" for decades. The lobby for small and medium-sized businesses and more environmental compatibility, a counterweight to the powerful and conservative German farmers' association. "The areas for soy cultivation that you don't have here are simply used in other parts of the world. That has to stop, because the population here wants a different type of agriculture."
Requirements according to strict EU supply chain law
That's what Anton Hofreiter wants too, at least since 2015 when he saw the gigantic and seemingly endless soybean fields in Brazil with his own eyes, which stretch as far as the horizon. The Green Member of the Bundestag is the politician in Germany who is most vehemently in favor of ending the current agricultural business model with South America better today than tomorrow.
"We no longer want to import soy from areas such as Brazil, which are clearing rainforests for cultivation. We are therefore calling for binding EU legislation for supply chains that are free from human rights violations, deforestation and other environmental crimes," says Hofreiter, "and it is It is important that we reduce our dependence on feed imports, for example by growing alternative fodder crops in Europe. "
Illegally produced soy ends up in German feed troughs
Currently, just five percent of European farmers get soy from local sources, like Wilhelm Eckei. The import of soybeans from Brazil, on the other hand, is reaching new records year after year. For this purpose, two million tons of soy a year, i.e. one fifth of imports into the EU, are grown on illegally cleared areas.
"We have a space problem in Germany, so we have to import a lot of soy" - Anton Hofreiter
After his visit to Brazil, Hofreiter wrote a book about the "meat factory in Germany", how factory farming is destroying people's livelihoods. The images from South America cannot get out of his head to this day, agricultural products from cleared forest areas in the Amazon must be put on an import ban as soon as possible.
Model of voluntary commitment failed?
Deutsche Umwelthilfe complains that not a single company, be it Aldi, Edeka or Kaufland, can trace all of the soy used in the supply chain back to the growing region. A strong supply chain law and a law against imported deforestation by the EU are urgently needed. But Agriculture Minister Julia Klöckner from the CDU prefers to rely on voluntary commitments instead of legal requirements.
Agriculture Minister Julia Klöckner is sharply criticized by environmental groups because of the soy issue
"If the policies of Germany and the European Union continue like this, the destruction of the rainforests will continue to increase. Europe is the largest market for soy in the world. So if we change our policy, we at least have the chance to put pressure on the Brazilian President Bolsonaro and thus making a difference, "says Anton Hofreiter.
A look at Brazil shows that none of this will be that easy.
Formerly an inhospitable region, now an economic engine: the state of Mato Grosso
Mato Grosso, the state in the Midwest, translates as "dense forest". When Wilhelm Eckei decided in 1989 to focus on organic farming, the region on the border with Bolivia was still inaccessible and economically unprofitable. Today the province, with an area twice the size of Spain, is the largest soy producer in the country and the economic engine of Brazil. "Green gold" is what they call the harvest here. The price: all that remains of the dense forest is the name, it disappears at record speed.
The big entrepreneurs are nicknamed "Soy Kings" and they rub their hands together when they think about the next year. Armies of workers are just about to prepare the ground, in October the plants will begin to grow. 136 million tons of grain are to be harvested in Brazil in 2022, predicts the state society for supply, Conab. Three times as high as the grain harvest in all of Germany.
If you drive along the BR-163 expressway through Mato Grosso, you will see kilometers of cultivation areas for soy, which even eat into the urban areas. The tallest buildings are the massive silos in which the soybeans are stored. At the same time you come across a wall of silence: the representative of the soy producer association Aprosoja does not want to give an interview on the subject to Deutsche Welle. Those responsible are reacting increasingly annoyed to the accusation of environmental destruction. No wonder, as they are in need of an explanation: According to statistics, 88 percent of clearing is illegal.
Small farmers have no chance against the powerful soy agricultural lobby and the president
Many people are benefiting from the soy boom in Mato Grosso, farmers like Marciano Manoel da Silva are in the minority. Da Silva tries to follow Wilhelm Eckei's path in Brazil, to promote ecological agriculture in South America, a mammoth task. He grows vegetables in the small town of Cláudia without the use of pesticides and is completely disillusioned : "We had the hope of being able to produce in a healthy and sustainable way, especially here in the Amazon."
Small farmers against Brazil's powerful agricultural lobby: Marciano Manoel da Silva in Mato Grosso
The pressure on farmers like da Silva and his colleagues from the social movement "Landless Workers Movement", or "MST" for short, is growing; it is a bit like the fight between David and Goliath. "We are constantly harassed by the powerful agribusiness, often with false promises to rent a farm and finally grow soybeans like everyone else." Because the hunger for "green gold" is huge, especially in China. Almost half of the soy harvested now goes to the Middle Kingdom.
Marciano Manoel da Silva can wait a long time for support from the government in Brazil: After all, there is the man who rules out all the bureaucratic hurdles for massive soy cultivation, protects producers against environmentalists and spends huge sums of money on the infrastructure of Mato Grosso pumps like the asphalting of the BR-163: President Jair Bolsonaro.
Bolsonaro's campaign against the environment
"Bolsonaro is an enemy of environmental protection, he is waging a war against nature, the indigenous peoples, environmentalists and science. He is also closely connected to those who clear the rainforest. Under Bolsonaro there is no will to cite overexploitation of nature. Those who still hope that Bolsonaro would turn into an environmentalist in the face of international pressure are on the wrong track, "says Carlos Rittl.
"Studies show that growing and selling natural products is more lucrative than soy" - Carlos Rittl
Environmental protection in his home country is the scientist's life's work. For years he has worked for non-governmental organizations such as Greenpeace and WWF as well as the climate observatory in Brazil. A year ago, in the middle of the corona pandemic, Rittl came to Germany and has been doing research at the Institute for Transformative Sustainability Research in Potsdam since then. A cumbersome name, to put it more simply: a memorial for more sustainability in the world.
The agreement between the EU and Mercosur with the Bolsonaro obstacle
Bolsonaro is also pursuing him in Germany, because Carlos Rittl, together with other scientists, has presented a highly regarded study: How could the agreement on environmental issues be improved, which has been negotiated for two long decades and which has fundamentally been political agreement since June 2019? The trade agreement between the European Union and the Mercosur countries of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay.
Brazil's President sees the state of Mato Grosso primarily as a source of income for soy cultivation
Rittl has sent concrete proposals to trade together without destroying the rainforest at the same time to all politicians in the European Union and the European Parliament. Only when all 27 member countries agree to the agreement can it come into force.
The environmental expert says: "Bolsonaro is the biggest obstacle to the ratification of the treaty, not even the economic recession can compensate for that. As of today, the deal for Brazil would be 11,000 square kilometers of deforested rainforest per year, and at the same time the advantage of an agreement without products Export taxes and duties to the EU. "
A spellbound view of the elections in Brazil at the end of 2022
That is why there are more and more voices in the European Union to let the free trade agreement break. After the general election in Germany with a possible participation of the Greens, the deal would have another prominent opponent. So far, France in particular has been stepping on the brakes to protect domestic agriculture, while Spain, Portugal and Sweden are pushing for ratification.
2022, a year after the elections in Germany, could be the decisive moment for the free trade agreement. Then the treaty went through all the bodies of the 27 EU member states. And in the fall, the Brazilian President Bolsonaro is standing for re-election. Carlos Rittl, whether in Brazil or still in Germany, will shiver along vigorously: "Bolsonaro's agenda is: destroy, then plant soybeans or create pastures for cattle and at the end make money. That must end in the 21st century."
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fonte redaction https://www.dw.com/de/wie-lange-noch-weiter-mit-dem-soja-import-aus-brasilien/a-58998048
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