In an unexpected move applauded by rainforest defenders, international soy traders have joined a campaign to reduce deforestation, agreeing not to buy soy grown in newly cut areas of the Brazilian Amazon over the next two years. The campaign, organized by the Greenpeace environmental group, won the adherence late last month of soy-trading heavyweights Bunge, Cargill, Archer Daniels Midland, the Dreyfus Group and the Maggi Group. “They’ve publicly recognized the need to change their purchasing practices to save the Amazon rainforest,” says John Sauven, Greenpeace’s campaigns director. “They have pledged to advise Amazon farmers they were suspending their business-as-usual practice of buying soy from recently felled rainforest, a promise that came to us as a bit of a surprise.” The traders’ turnabout... [Log in to read more]