Environmentalists are registering strong opposition to the upcoming expiration of a voluntary agreement under which soy operators have refrained from buying soybeans grown on Amazon land cleared since July 2006, when the moratorium was first signed. The moratorium will end on Dec. 31 by decision of the private-sector members of the stakeholder group that created it—the Brazilian Soy Working Group, whose soy-industry members determined in January that the measure is no longer needed. The private-sector members are the Brazilian Vegetable Oil Industry Association (Abiove); the Brazilian Grain Exporters Association (Anec), and individual soy traders and processors such as U.S.-based Bunge, Cargill, and Archer Daniels Midland. Its other members include Brazil’s Environment Ministry and leading environmental organizations, among them WWF Brazil... [Log in to read more]