“Tesco pays soy farmers to halt deforestation in the Brazilian Cerrado”, 14^th February 2020

…Tesco is among a small group of companies incentivising Brazillian farmers to stop deforestation through a new initiative: ‘Funding for Soy Farmers in the Cerrado’. The Cerrado savannah covers more than 20% of Brazil. Home to over 5% of global biodiversity, the Cerrado stores nearly 1.4bn tonnes of carbon and is crucial to preserving 40% of Brazil’s fresh water.

However, deforestation is prevalent in the Cerrado…This is largely due to land conversion for cattle ranches and soy crops…

With the majority of Brazilian soy coming from the Cerrado, food and feed companies, including UK retailer Tesco, are joining forces to halt deforestation across the savannah.

The funding initiative, known as ‘Funding for Soy Farmers in the Cerrado’, aims to support farmers to produce soy on existing agricultural land only. In doing so, the cohort of food and feed businesses hope to save critically important forest and native vegetation from deforestation…

UK supermarket retailer Tesco is contributing £10m…to the ‘potentially transformational’ initiative. “Brazil is our most significant sourcing country for the soy used as animal feed in our supply chain,” noted the company. “In line with our UK Zero Deforestation Soy Transition Plan, we aim to support the creation of verified deforestation soy sourcing areas.”…