- “If the Biden Administration is serious about a global zero-deforestation agenda while helping US agribusiness, it should proactively support the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) abroad, and double down at home on support for U.S. soy farmers and cattle ranchers to comply with the EUDR,” a new op-ed argues.
- Rather than support it, the U.S. is demanding that the European Union delay the EUDR, parroting arguments put forth by a small number of the U.S.’s least ethical producers, while ignoring thousands of companies and investors actively supporting the EUDR.
- “The U.S. has such limited deforestation exposure on soy and cattle it exports to the EU that most U.S. soy and cattle exports to Europe will likely benefit from the EUDR. The exact opposite of what Vilsack, Raimundo, and Tai’s letter argues.”
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
A crucial new European law to save global forests is under attack, by the Biden Administration – precisely at the time Biden seeks to burnish his environmental credentials.
The regulation at stake? It’s the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), a law that’s widely considered the best hope for the lungs of our planet.
Yet the U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimundo, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, and Trade Representative Katherine Tai sent a letter to the European Commission demanding that the European Union delay the EUDR. Their letter parroted ill-informed arguments put forth by a small number of the U.S.’s least ethical producers, and ignored how thousands of companies and investors representing trillions of dollars are on the opposite side, actively supporting the EUDR.
Worse yet, the letter in essence asked Europe to penalize the most law-abiding companies, many of which are already investing in due diligence and deploying all their resources to ensure timely compliance. Delaying the EUDR, as Vilsack asks, would hurt companies that started early and reward the laggards.
The truth is that American producers are perfectly capable of producing the products regulated by the EUDR without deforestation, namely soy, cattle, timber, cocoa, rubber, and coffee. Indeed, the United States should be the foremost supporter of the EUDR, perhaps unlike other producer countries that are less able to control significant deforestation in the regulated commodities.
Here’s why: new and as of yet unpublished data from the supply chains expert group TRASE shows that deforestation linked to EU imports from the U.S. is low, particularly when compared to other cattle/soy producers like Brazil.
It turns out (surprise, surprise!) that U.S. soy and cattle exported to the EU comes with deforestation risk so minimal that it’s almost trivial: Data showed the U.S. was behind only 1% of the EU’s exposure to deforestation from soy, and only 0.19% from cattle products:
There are vanishingly few rubber, cocoa, coffee farms in the U.S. compared to tropical producer countries like Indonesia. Thus, hardly any U.S. farmers care much that rubber, cocoa, coffee are getting regulated by the EUDR. What rogue elements of the US agricultural sector are really agitating about are two other commodities regulated by the EUDR: soy and cattle. An awful lot of those go from the U.S. to the EU.
But American soy and cattle farmers have little to worry about, and both farmers and the Biden Administration should resist fear mongering of fringe elements in U.S. industry.
TRASE looked into the EU’s deforestation exposure per ton of imports from the U.S. for soy and cattle products, and compared this with Brazil. The data shows that the deforestation risk per ton is about 30 times higher for soy imported from Brazil than from the U.S., and about 90 times higher for cattle products from Brazil than from the U.S.
What is the bottom line? The U.S. is vastly lower risk than other major producers of cattle and soy, like Brazil. Under a risk-based system of checks, the U.S. would face lower scrutiny from European authorities. In practical terms, the risk associated with any non-compliance from a U.S.-producer perspective is likely to be quite low. European ‘Competent Authorities’ are only really going to have capacity to respond to intelligence that leads them to believe there is a high risk.
Companies importing into Europe will ultimately look to strengthen their supply chains with producers who demonstrate low risk with high confidence, likely in the U.S.
The U.S. has such limited deforestation exposure on soy and cattle it exports to the EU that most US soy and cattle exports to Europe will likely benefit from the EUDR. The exact opposite of what Vilsack, Raimundo, and Tai’s letter argues.
Indeed, American cattle has such a low risk of deforestation, that the U.S. Cattlemen’s Association spoke out forcefully in favor of the US FOREST Act (a bill with bipartisan support in the US House and Senate that’s roughly speaking a proposed U.S. equivalent to the EUDR).
If the Biden Administration is serious about a global zero-deforestation agenda while helping U.S. agribusiness, it should proactively support the EUDR abroad, and double down at home on support for U.S. soy farmers and cattle ranchers to comply with the EUDR.
It should not stand in the way of progress, attacking allies and hurting responsible businesses.
Etelle Higonnet previously served as Senior Advisor at the National Wildlife Federation with a focus on curbing deforestation, and before that as campaign director at Mighty Earth, focusing on advocacy for zero deforestation with an emphasis on cocoa, palm oil, rubber, cattle, and soy industries.
Banner image: Cattle grazing recently deforested land in the municipality Aripuanã, Mato Grosso, Brazil. Image © Bruno Kelly/Greenpeace.
See a related commentary by this author:
See related features on growing commodity crops sustainably:
Can palm oil be grown sustainably? Agroforestry research suggests it can, and without chemicals
Agroforestry offers Thai rubber farmers a pathway to profit and sustainability
Credits
