Soya king doesn't care about rape of Amazon

The ruthless obliteration of the Amazon rainforest is continuing at a headlong rate, new figures reveal. The man who more than any other represents the forces making it happen is Blairo Maggi, the millionaire farmer and uncompromising politician presiding over the Brazilian boom in soya-bean production. He is known in Brazil as O Rei da Soja - the King of Soy.

Brazilian environmentalists are calling him something else - the King of Deforestation. For the soya boom, feeding a seemingly insatiable world market for soya beans as cattle feed, is now the main driver of rainforest destruction.

Figures show that last year the rate of forest clearance in the Amazon was the second highest on record as the soy boom completed its third year. A vast area of more than 25,900sq km - nearly the size of Belgium - was cut down. Half the destruction alone was in the state of Mato Grosso, where Maggi, whose Maggi Group farming business is the world's biggest soya bean producer, also happens to be the state governor.

In 2003, Maggi's first year as governor, the rate of deforestation in Mato Grosso more than doubled.

Last year he said: "To me, a 40 per cent increase in deforestation doesn't mean anything at all, and I don't feel the slightest guilt over what we are doing here. We are talking about an area larger than Europe that has barely been touched, so there is nothing at all to get worried about."

The survival of the Amazon forest, which sprawls over 4.1 million sq km, and covers more than half of Brazil's land area, may be the key to the survival of the planet. The jungle is sometimes called the world's "lung" because its trees produce much of the world's oxygen. It is thought nearly 20 per cent of it has already been destroyed by legal and illegal logging, and clearance for cattle ranching. But the soya boom has dramatically stepped up the pace of destruction.

It began on the back of the BSE crisis in Britain, when the feed given to cattle suddenly became a matter of intense public concern. Cattle-feed producers around the world switched to soya as an untainted source.

The boom was intensified by the fact that Brazil - in contrast with the US and Argentina - did not go down the GM route in its agriculture, so when most European countries went GM-free, it was from Brazil that they sought their soya-bean supplies. Europe imports 65 per cent of its soya from Brazil. A further impetus to the boom is coming from China, whose emerging middle class wants to eat more and more meat - so the demand for animal feed is soaring.

Environment Minister Marina Silva, who is from the Amazon state of Acre, said the figure was "very high, but we will work to fight this in a structured way, with lasting and effective action, involving all sectors".

But Greenpeace's Amazon co-ordinator Paulo Adario said the scale of the destruction was a tragedy, and showed that deforestation "is not a priority for the Lula Government".

Maggi, whose company grossed US$600 million ($846.7 million) last year, does not see the future as one of restricted soya plantings. He has called for a tripling of the amount of land planted with soybeans during the next decade.

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Brazil's No. 1 earner

Soya-bean production is a vital industry for Brazil. Agribusiness is the country's No 1 export earner and soya the principal commodity.

The Government, under President Lula, actively promotes soya export as a means of earning foreign exchange for debt payments.

Two companies dominate Brazil's soya business. Gruppo Maggi, owned by Blairo Maggi, is considered to be the world's largest individual soy producer (with 140,000ha in production) and Brazil's major soy handler.

But the No 1 soy-exporter is the giant US grains business, Cargill, the undisputed leader of the global grain trade.