Justice on your plate

Fresh fish belongs to Santarém’s traditional cuisine, just like cassava. It is usually served with local root vegetables and tucupi, a broth made from bitter cassava (mandioca brava). And a side helping of açaí berries, the palm fruit marketed as a “superfood” in North America and Europe, is an absolute must.

So, is Santarém, in the Brazilian state of Pará, a tropical land of plenty?

Hardly: since 2017/2018, almost 26 per cent of the population in northern Brazil cannot adequately and reliably meet its needs for healthy food. In Pará, the figure is as high as 30 per cent. Increasing numbers of residents here are turning to the comparatively cheaper products of industrial agriculture and fast food – instead of eating what the Amazon basin has provided since time immemorial and reflects the widespread indigenous heritage here.

This is confirmed by  a new study  conducted in Santarém by a research team led by Renato Maluf at the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro in collaboration with CDE. The researchers found that roots like cassava and its flour are now often replaced by wheat products like bread and pasta; instead of fresh fish from the river, locals now consume frozen fish from aquacultures or overfished seas; and instead of free-range chickens from the neighbourhood, they eat chicken from poultry farms.

A few things are common to these “new” products in the region: they have been transported long distances, are industrially produced, grown in monocultures, heavily processed, and sold by supermarket chains. In contrast to Europe or North America, however, this development is not just a reflection of the latest food trends or voluntary dietary changes among consumers.

It is mainly due to another phenomenon: the agro-industrial soy–meat complex, that is, a variety of sociopolitical processes and economic dynamics associated with meat production using concentrated animal feed.

At the heart of it all is global agribusiness. The problems surrounding agribusiness regularly attract media attention: land grabbing, deforestation, environmental destruction, excessive pesticide use, controversial technologies, and human rights violations. For example, the  Brazilian Pastoral Land Commission (CPT) recently reported  that land-related conflicts have reached a new high since the start of surveying in 1985.

The Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture introduced the so-called ABC Plan, more recently expanded into an  ABC+ Plan.  This relies on modern technology to reduce agriculture-related greenhouse gases. Under the banner of “increased biodiversity”, it also includes loans for restoration of degraded pastureland – in practice resulting in nothing more than a combination of two to four monocultures: soy, pasture, cattle, and eucalyptus plantations.

Another strategy was the “soy moratorium” agreed on in 2006 by associations of soy processors and exporters, not least of all to counter the threat of calls to boycott soy. These processors and exporters pledged to no longer buy soy from deforested areas in the Amazon. And, indeed, Amazon deforestation rates declined until 2016. But whether this resulted from the soy moratorium or from measures by the government at the time – especially stricter controls on logging – remains a matter of debate.

What is certain is that Amazon deforestation rates rose again after the neoliberal-conservative government loosened Brazil’s environmental policies from 2016 onwards – even though the moratorium was still in place. Also certain is that deforestation increased sharply and soy plantations expanded in the wet savannahs of the Cerrado during the period when deforestationfell elsewhere in the Amazon.

A third strategy has been pursued by the network “Round Table on Responsible Soy (RTRS)”, founded and based in Zurich since 2006, which emphasizes  certification . The initiative promises that the soy it certifies is “environmentally friendly, socially responsible, and economically viable” and is not produced on land deforested after mid-2008. However, besides the fact that the certified farms mostly lie in areas that were already heavily degraded up to that cut-off date, it is mainly only large players who can financially afford to obtain the certification.

Moreover, the RTRS does not restrict the cultivation of genetically modified soy or the use of pesticides. Nor does it restrict deforestation in other regions to create export routes for the certified soybeans. This means that “the same company can produce certified soy in one region and be associated with deforestation in another,” observes Renato Maluf.

Now begins the next phase of transnational agribusiness in the soy–meat complex. Not only have roads been constructed or extended through savannahs and tropical forests, inland ports have also been built on the Tapajós and Amazon rivers. These mostly private “goods transshipment points” are in the hands of leading global trading companies. Their objective: shipping soy and maize by the shortest route possible to their biggest clients in China and Europe.

Opponents of the project – especially affected indigenous groups – have declared their intention to fight it. But a stop appears unlikely, not least because the  influential trading companies  and their networks are working flat out to increase soy cultivation in Mato Grosso and multiply the freight capacities and soy facilities on the Tapajós and Amazon rivers.

But what does this all have to do with the altered eating habits in Santarém?

Strategies such as the Brazilian ABC Plan and the RTRS certification “have limits in reducing deforestation and carbon emissions,” write Renato Maluf and his research team in their  scientific report . At the same time, “they do not alter the power structures and determinants of injustices stemming from dominant food systems, and may even reinforce them.”

What this means for local production of healthy food along the Tapajós river – or “the river of life” for the indigenous Munduruku – is vividly illustrated by the example of small-scale fishing: Due to container traffic, water pollution from soy- and maize-related waste, and mercury contamination from illegal mining, fish stocks in the river have declined while health risks for the local population have increased. As a result, supplies for the typical “Santarém menu” now often come from fish farms in the states of Mato Grosso or Rondônia. There, the animals are fattened with – what else? – soy and maize, in industrial operations.

This does more than alter people’s eating habits. It diminishes the income opportunities for small farming or fishing families as well as indigenous peoples – with a host of impacts on their health, culture, and well-being.

“Ultimately”, says research project head Theresa Tribaldos of CDE, “the example of Santarém and soy shows how consumer behaviour in China and Europe – the main importers of Brazilian soy – impacts the local population with respect to distributive justice, decision-making power, knowledge, and values.”

Indeed, these globalized food systems raise a number of questions: Do the people who live in producer countries still have access to healthy food? Do those working in the initial stages of food production earn enough? Do they have a say in their own food system?

Or are they, their natural environment, and their ways of living being pushed aside by “modern” lifestyles and the interests of agribusiness?

“We must fundamentally rethink our food systems to make them fit for the future”, says CDE senior scientist Theresa Tribaldos in a recent German-language  interview with the economic weekly Handelszeitung . According to her, this rethink must be carried out on all the different levels at once – beginning with a shift away from massive monocultures.  

Scientific studies on the soy–meat complex

Maluf, Renato S.; Burlandy, Luciene; Cintrão, Rosângela P.; Tribaldos, Theresa; Jomalinis, Emilia (2024).  Food Systems and Access to Healthy Food in an Amazonian Context  

Maluf, Renato S.; Burlandy, Luciene; Cintrão, Rosângela P.; Jomalinis, Emilia; Carvalho, Tassia C.O.; Tribaldos, Theresa (2022).  Sustainability, justice and equity in food systems: Ideas and proposals in dispute in Brazil  

Maluf, Renato S.; Burlandy, Luciene; Cintrão, Rosângela P.; Jomalinis, Emilia; Santarelli, Mariana; Tribaldos, Theresa (2022).  Global value chains, food and just transition: a multi-scale approach to Brazilian soy value chains 

The project “Just Food” explores potential ways of achieving a just transition to sustainable, healthy food systems. The research is funded by the Strategic Research Council (SRC) at the Academy of Finland and led by the Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE). CDE helped to develop criteria and an indicator-based methodology to assess transitions to just food systems. In addition, together with the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, CDE investigated the local impacts of the soy–meat complex in a case study in Santarém.

 More about the project