Decision of food giant to stop sourcing Brazilian soy from Cargill welcomed but a failure to act on other suspect commodity supply chains raises yet more questions
Nestlé’s decision to stop sourcing Brazilian soy from
Cargill was seen as a positive step in its fight against deforestation. Yet,
questions remain as the food giant continues to rely on Cargill for hundreds of
its palm oil and cocoa suppliers around the world.
In the December announcement Nestlé
said they stopped purchasing from Cargill in Brazil in May due to “its
inability to deliver traceable soy”.
Cargill has a significant soy presence in the Cerrado, a
Brazilian savannah biome that has been heavily deforested for soy cultivation.
It is estimated that nearly half of the Cerrado’s natural vegetation – about 88
million hectares – has been destroyed.
There are 2.6 million hectares (ha) of unregistered soy farms in
Brazil, representing 12 per cent of the total, according to an October Trase briefing by
the NGO Global Canopy, which also named Cargill as among the firms most exposed
to illegal operations.
The firm said in
June that it and the industry would fail to meet its 2020 zero deforestation
pledge and followed this up with a defiant rejection of the mooted ‘Soy
Moratorium’ planned for the Cerrado.
The commodities monolith has faced years of criticism over
the environmental impact its soy, palm oil and other commodities’ sourcing
policies have had on land and communities in South-East Asia, Latin America and
North America.
Although Nestlé has called time on its relationship with
Cargill for Brazilian soy, the food conglomerate maintains a significant buying
relationship with the firm in Indonesia for palm oil and in West Africa for
cocoa, among other areas.
The US NGO Mighty Earth delivered a scathing assessment in
June that laid bare the company’s chequered history and alleged abuses in a report titled Cargill:
The Worst Company in the World.
From colluding with security forces to evict locals from
palm oil concessions in Indonesia to enabling the use of child labour on cocoa
farms in West Africa, the allegations against Cargill are numerous.
The latest data on
Nestlé’s website states that “54 per cent of our total palm oil purchased in 2018 was
traceable”. Its most recent supplier
list for the commodity, published in August 2019, lists Cargill as the
supplier from dozens of palm mills in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Brazil.
A 2019 Greenpeace briefing published
in the wake of widespread fires in Indonesia, many of which were started
illegally to allow for commodity cultivation, names Cargill as being exposed to
more than 8,000 fire hotspots in the country covering 161,300ha.
Meanwhile, 17 of Nestlé’s 54 tier 2 cocoa suppliers in Cote
d’Ivoire are sourced via Cargill, according to its supplier
list from March 2019.
It is estimated that 2 million children work in
exploitative and hazardous conditions in cocoa fields in Ivory Coast and
neighbouring Ghana. A Washington Post exposé in June revealed ongoing child
labour and trafficking abuses in the sector.
Nestlé, along with Mars and Hershey, agreed in 2001 to
eradicate child labour from its cocoa supply chains but that and several other
voluntary pledges to adequately monitor its suppliers and traceability have
failed to deliver on their promises.
In response to questions whether they would stop sourcing
palm oil and cocoa from Cargill and if the firm is able to fully trace its
other Cargill supply chains, a Nestlé spokesperson told Earthsight: “We stopped
sourcing soya from Cargill in May 2019 because of recent changes in their
policy regarding deforestation in Brazil.
“Our Responsible Sourcing Standard applies to all our
suppliers. We work together with our suppliers to map our supply chains, assess
performance against our standard and develop time-bound action plans to address
any gaps found.
“We drive our responsible sourcing operations with the objective of continuously improving the sustainability practices of our suppliers, all the way up to the farm level. Our preferred way of working is to partner on transformation. However, we take decisive action in the event that a supplier does not comply with effectively managing identified risks or meeting agreed deadlines for action plans."
