From action.RAN.org

What do biofuels have to do with climate change?

• Biofuels are promoted as a solution to global warming, but more accurate life-cycle assessments show that clearing forests to produce soy and palm oil for industrial biofuels actually increases climate-changing emissions, deforestation and land degradation. Also, crop irrigation and refineries deplete already dwindling fresh water resources.

• The rapid expansion (currently 2.5 million acres per year in the tropical forests of Indonesia, Malaysia and Papua New Guinea) of industrial soy and palm oil plantations to meet growing demand for biofuels is resulting in a corresponding increase in rainforest destruction as forests are slashed and burned to make room for industrial agriculture. The resulting greenhouse gas emissions dramatically accelerate global climate change.

What does Cargill have to do with biofuels?

• Cargill is a top producer of soy and palm oil, controlling a dozen plantations in Indonesia and Malaysia. The agribusiness giant is the fourth-largest exporter of palm oil from Malaysia and holds 14,000 acres of plantations – all on newly cleared forestland – throughout Indonesia and Papua New Guinea.

• Cargill does not respect international environmental standards or even local laws. The company continues to operate a soy port in Santarem, Brazil – despite the port being ruled illegal by the Brazilian Supreme Court – that has caused regional deforestation rates to double since the port opened in 2003. Cargill is also currently constructing a soy processing facility and mega-port in Asuncion, Paraguay, only 500 meters upstream from the main public water utility, raising grave concerns about contamination of the entire capital city’s water supply.

How is Cargill a Foe of Family Farmers?

• Biofuels are causing the displacement, often violent, of Indigenous and local farming communities, as well as the diversion of lands formerly used to produce food for local consumption into production of biofuels for export to wealthy northern countries. Soy and palm plantation workers are subjected to extremely poor working conditions, chemical exposures, and other abuses.

• Cargill condones abusive labor practices that indenture families and oppress communities. Additionally, Cargill actively maintains discriminatory labor practices against women on its plantations in Papua New Guinea.

Rainforest Action Network is pushing Cargill and other U.S. agribusinesses to stop clearing rainforests to plant commodity crops. For more information, visit ran.org OR TheProblemWithPalmOil.org