Bunge achieves 100% traceability of soy supply chain in Brazil
BRAZIL – Bunge, a global leader in agribusiness and food, announced on November 21 that it has achieved 100% traceability and monitoring of its direct and indirect soy purchases in key regions of the Cerrado biome in Brazil.
This achievement represents a critical step towards Bunge’s goal of achieving a zero-deforestation soy supply chain by 2025, contributing to the larger effort of sustainable agricultural development in Brazil.
The company credits its success to its Sustainable Partnership program, which has been working to establish socio-environmental governance within the soy value chain since 2021.
Through this initiative, Bunge has provided cooperatives and grain resellers with the knowledge, tools, and methodologies needed to develop their own traceability systems.
More than 90 resellers in Brazil have participated in this program, reinforcing the importance of collaboration to drive sustainability across the entire supply chain.
Rossano de Angelis Jr., Bunge’s vice president of Agribusiness in South America, expressed pride in the company’s achievement.
“We are proud to reach this major milestone in our 10-year journey to achieve traceable and verifiable supply chains, so that we reach our zero-deforestation goal in 2025,” said de Angelis.
“Reconciling the development of agriculture with the preservation of the environment depends on a collective journey, and we are pleased to be a leader in working with other stakeholders in the industry,”he added.
The priority regions in Brazil’s Cerrado, including Maranhão, Tocantins, Piauí, Bahia, and Mato Grosso, are critical areas at risk of deforestation due to agricultural expansion.
Bunge’s achievement of complete traceability in these regions was made possible through the integration of satellite monitoring systems, enabling the company to track and monitor its indirect supply chain as of October.
This builds on the success the company had in 2020 with direct soy purchases, which are commodities bought directly from farmers. Indirect purchases are those made from local grain resellers, which posed an additional challenge to traceability.
The program’s backbone is the LYRA platform, developed by agtech company Vega Monitoramento. This platform employs a range of technologies including satellite and farm-scale imagery, remote sensing, artificial intelligence, and structured data to support traceability, monitoring, and socio-environmental assessments of agricultural properties.
In addition to providing access to these tools, Bunge has ensured that a dedicated technical team from Vega is available to guide resellers in using the platform and training them in best practices for evaluating socio-environmental compliance.
Looking forward, Bunge plans to expand the benefits of this technology.
“With the success of the program, we agreed with our technology partner Vega to make the tool available to other companies in the sector, so that they can also have their indirect supply chains tracked and monitored,” de Angelis added.
He noted that Bunge believes in the power of collaboration and reiterates its commitment to continue to promote advanced sustainability standards and approaches in our sector.
Sign up to HERE receive our email newsletters with the latest news and insights from Africa and around the world, and follow us on our WhatsApp channel for updates.
