OCTF online seminar (via Zoom) followed by Q&A

Soy expansion is linked to extensive deforestation in the Amazon. In response to public outrage in Brazil, the US, and Europe over this reality, networks of scholars, environmental NGOs, government agencies, and transnational agribusiness corporations orchestrated a “moratorium” on soy exports from recently cleared Amazonian land. While the Amazon Soy Moratorium is criticized for excluding the Cerrado ecosystem and focusing narrowly on deforestation (ignoring environmental intoxication and other socio-ecological problems associated with soy monocultures), the initiative is hailed as a victory for sustainable development in mainstream discourse. There are now efforts to expand upon this model of voluntary standards for environmental governance, increasing transparency and improving the sustainability of soy and other deforestation-linked commodity supply chains. In this presentation, I critique the neo-Malthusian assumptions and eco-modernist goals that define these efforts, denaturalize the Brazil-China relations that constitute the main channel of global soy trade, and promote an agroecological alternative for development in Brazil, China, and the world.

Dr. Gustavo de L. T. Oliveira is assistant professor of global and international studies at the University of California Irvine. He holds a PhD in geography from the University of California Berkeley, and is a member of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network Science Panel for the Amazon. His is co-editor of Soy, Globalization, and Environmental Politics in South America (Routledge, 2018) and Beyond the Global Land Grab: New Directions for Research on Land Struggles and Global Agrarian Change (Routledge, 2021). He is Co-PI of a USDA-funded project on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on US food supply chains, and he is writing a book on Brazil, China, and the Global Land Grab.