For
Immediate Release - Thursday 17 April 2008
International Day of Peasant's Struggle
Coalition
calls on NGOs to withdraw support to Responsible Soy Roundtable
Asunción, Paraguay
One week before
the third meeting of the Roundtable on Responsible Soy (RTRS)
in Buenos Aires, Argentina [1],
the Global Forest Coalition, a worldwide coalition of Non Governmental
Organizations (NGOs) and Indigenous Peoples Organizations [2],
have published an open call to NGOs to withdraw themselves from
the RTRS process [3]. The Coalition states that by supporting
the roundtable, NGOs are legitimizing the expansion of large-scale
soy monocultures that lead to massive deforestation, pesticide
contamination, rural depopulation, malnutrition and violent land
conflicts. It calls upon NGOs to instead address the over- consumption
of products like meat and transport fuels in continents like Europe,
which is the main destination of South American soy.
"It is not
coherent to increase export levies to halt the 'soyfication' of
our country while there is continued support for the production
of agrofuels, taking into account that there are 9.000.000 hectares
of additional soy production needed to supply the agrodiesel plants
that are currently projected," points out Elba Stancich of
the NGO Taller Ecologista in Argentina. "The continued support
for the current agricultural model forms the main obstacle to
another type of agriculture, as it obliges small and medium-size
farmers to adopt non- sustainable production methods based on
competition and industrialization. Instead, we need family farms
that foster the sustainable use of our common wealth for the production
of quality food for local consumption."
"Soy monoculture
covers 21 million hectares in Brazil, the second largest world
producer and exporter of soybean, soybean oil and soybean meal,
and the largest exporter of value added soy as poultry, pork and
beef. Soy also accounts for 80% of the raw material used to produce
biodiesel in Brazil to date, " said Camila Moreno from Terra
Di Direitos in Brazil. She adds: "Soy is indisputably recognized
as the main driving force of deforestation over the Amazon and
Cerrado and a root cause of the escalating rural violence and
human rights violations associated to land issues in our country.
Soy expansion and soy greed has allowed Genetically Modified Organisms
(GMOs) illegally into the country, smuggling seeds from Argentina.That
gives precedent to the legalization of other GMOs leading to peasant
and family farm indebtedness in southern Brazil."
The standards
for "responsible" soy as currently proposed do not even
exclude genetically modified soy, despite the fact that the overwhelming
majority of consumers in Europe rejects genetically modified crops.
Elias Diaz Peña of Sobrevivencia in Paraguay adds: "We
entirely reject the irresponsible insistence on such an oxymoron
as sustainable soy. Soy is the cement of an all western way of
life and diet, and as we see all around, there is no criteria
but profit to its expansion. Even more scandalous than soy's devastating
effects over biodiversity and traditional food cultures is the
hypocrisy of northern consumers and their governments that refuse
to accept the bare truth."
According to
Dr. Miguel Lovera, the chairperson of the Global Forest Coalition,
"The support of civil society organisations to this Roundtable
is legitimizing a corporate-dominated process that attempts to
give a green veneer to further soy expansion in South America
and other regions instead of promoting more sustainable consumption
patterns that would take away the need for further expansion."
Lovera, a Paraguayan agronomist, adds: "Certification processes
are not able to address the indirect impacts of soy production,
such as deforestation caused by cattle ranching and other agricultural
activities that are displaced by soy monocultures. We need a dramatic
reduction of soy monocultures, land reform and a country-wide
deforestation ban here, as well as a drastic reduction in the
consumption of meat, diary and agrodiesel in the countries addicted
to soy."
For more information,
please contact:Orin Langelle, Global Forest Coalition media coordinator:
+1-802-482-2689/+1-578-6980 (English) Dr. Miguel Lovera, chairperson,
Global Forest Coalition: +595-21- 663654/ + 595-971-201957 (English,
Spanish, French and Dutch) Pablo Valenzuela, media coordinator,
Sobrevivencia, +595-21-480182 Elias Diaz Peña, director
environmental program, Sobrevivencia:
+595-21-480182 (English and Spanish) Elba Stancich, Coordinación
General, Taller Ecologista - Argentina: Telefax +54-341-4261475
(Spanish)
NOTES FOR EDITORS:
[1] The third meeting of the Roundtable on Responsible Soy will
take place on 23 and 24 April in Buenos Aires, Argentina. While
the process has been rejected by the overwhelming majority of
civil society organizations in the soy producer countries, some
12 NGOs, including 4 international conservation organizations,
are still member of the RTRS. The roundtable also has 48 corporate
members,
including a growing number of agrofuel producers like Shell and
BP.
[2] See: <http://www.globalforestcoalition.org>
[3] See: "Open Call to civil society organizations to withdraw
from the Roundtable on Responsible Soy" which follows NOTES
FOR
EDITORS.
[4] See also <http://www.lasojamata.org> for more information
on the impacts of soy monocultures and a joint statement against
the RTRS by over 130 organizations.
Open Call to civil society organizations to withdraw from
the Roundtable on Responsible Soy
The Global Forest
Coalition, a worldwide coalition of NGOs and Indigenous Peoples'
Organizations (www.globalforestcoalition.org) reiterates its strong
opposition to the Roundtable on Responsible Soy
(RTRS), a corporate-dominated process to give a veneer of sustainability
to the continued expansion of soy production in America and other
regions, and specifically calls upon the current NGO and
other civil society organization members of RTRS to withdraw their
support to this process.
As any extensive
crop, soy production is associated with a large range of socioeconomic
and environmental problems. Generally, small soy producers can
not compete with large soy producers in a globalized market, leading
to further land concentration, rural unemployment, depopulation,
malnutrition and a sharp increase in violent conflicts between
small farmers and large agro-industrial producers. Many of these
conflicts are accompanied by serious human rights violations.
The recent crisis in Argentina has proven once more that soy production
leads to accumulation of wealth in the hands of a small elite
that is not willing to share its profits with the rest of society.
The current proposals for RTRS criteria almost completely ignore
these direct and indirect social impacts of soy expansion.
The RTRS criteria
as they currently stand promote genetically modified soy as "responsible
soy", even though GM soy is rejected by millions of consumers
and NGOs all over the world due to its
environmental and social impacts, and the risks to human health
posed by its production and consumption. These criteria do not
reject the use of large amounts of agrochemicals in soy production.
Considering the sheer size of territory currently used for soy
production, even legally permitted use of agrochemicals leads
to massive intoxication of the country-side in the producing countries,
additionally causing depletion of freshwater resources of Indigenous
Peoples and rural communities, massive biodiversity loss, and
numerous health problems amongst the rural population, often with
fatal consequences.
Despite recent
deforestation moratoria in countries like Paraguay and Argentina,
soy production continues to be responsible for massive deforestation
in the areas that are not yet protected by law, especially in
Brazil. Soy production continues to be associated with massive
illegal forest conversion. By replacing cattle ranching and small-scale
traditional farming, soy production is also indirectly responsible
for the further expansion of the agricultural frontier into intact,
biodiversity-rich
areas, like the Gran Chaco, where Indigenous Peoples living in
voluntary isolation are severely threatened by the continued expansion
of the large scale agricultural frontier.
The overwhelming
majority of soy produced in Latin America is exported as feedstock
for fodder in intensive livestock production in Europe, an industry
that is severely criticized by European NGOs due
to its impacts on the environment and animal welfare. The increased
use of soy for agrodiesel aggravates the existing problems, including,
paradoxically, climate change: if all direct and indirect emissions
are taken into account, agrodiesel produced from soy has a negative
carbon balance compared to most conventional transport fuels.
By replacing traditional food-crops, soy production undermines
food sovereignty and food security in vast regions of Latin America.
The Roundtable
on Responsible Soy has virtually ignored these social and environmental
impacts, which are inherent to large-scale soy production. Certification
initiatives are incapable to address the
indirect environmental and social impacts of large scale soy production.
We share the
concern of other organizations about the continued support for
this roundtable by NGOs that represent the vested interests of
Northern consumers in the luxury products most soy is destined
for: cheap meat and agrodiesel for individual car transport.
We stress the
fact that the RTRS has been created to offer "moral tranquility"
to Northern consumers, so that they maintain their soy consumption
rhythm, and at no time was it intended to serve the interests
of the peoples of Southern countries. We call upon the NGOs supporting
this process to respect the views
of the overwhelming majority of the environmental and social NGOs,
farmer's movements and Indigenous Peoples in the producer countries,
which have rejected the RTRS on multiple occasions .
For this reason,
we calll upon civil society organizations currently involved in
the process, to disengage from the RTRS in solidarity with the
victims of soy expansion and for the restoration of a sounder
environment, instead of greenwashing a product that is inherently
unsustainable when produced at large scales. We call upon these
NGOs to convince their constituencies to adopt more sustainable
lifestyles by consuming less meat and using more sustainable forms
of transport, thus avoiding the need for large amounts of soy
for fodder and agrofuel.
Orin
Langelle
Media Coordinator
Global Forest Coalition
email: orin.langelle@globalforestcoalition.org
http://www.globalforestcoalition.org
U.S. telephones:
+1.802.482.2689 (office)
+1.802.578.6980 (mobile)
