On September 30, Brazil’s antitrust authority, CADE, will rule on the Amazon Soy Moratorium. The watchdog must decide whether the pact is a cartel in disguise. Farm lobbies argue that Cargill, Bunge (BG), ADM (ADM) and Louis Dreyfus impose tougher rules than Brazil’s Forest Code. In August, its investigators issued a preventive suspension, halting audits and blacklists.
That looks like a win for local farmers. In fact, it may be the opposite. Producers want to curb the bargaining power of multinational traders, who dominate ports, logistics and contracts. By framing the moratorium as collusion, they hope to tilt pricing and market access back in their favor.
Yet the pact has delivered results. Since 2006, it has cut the direct link between soy and Amazon deforestation, with less than 2% of new expansion on recently cleared land. Monitoring and blacklists pushed farmers to grow on pre-cleared areas or in the Cerrado instead. The moratorium also gave Brazil’s agribusiness an environmental badge, especially in Europe, where retailers demand deforestation-free supply chains, later extending its reputational shield to China.
Meanwhile, US farmers are suffocating. China froze imports of American soy as retaliation for Washington’s tariffs. Silos in the Midwest are full, prices are falling and political costs are rising. For decades, more than half of US soy exports went to China. This year, not a single cargo has sailed east.
Brazil filled the gap. Between January and August it shipped 66mn tonnes of soy to China — three-quarters of its exports. The moratorium underpinned this dominance, offering Beijing a perception of “clean” supply even if climate targets mattered less than cheap, reliable flows. But if CADE dismantles the pact, a future tariff deal could reopen China to US soy. Traders can pivot globally. Local producers cannot.
By trying to weaken the power of multinational traders, Brazilian farmers — backed by lobbyists and political allies in Congress — may end up strengthening Washington’s hand instead. Global traders will adapt. The losers could be Brazil’s growers — and its climate narrative at COP30.
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