MINNEAPOLIS, MN–One year after Cargill announced a commitment to eliminate deforestation and land conversion from its soy supply chains in South America “by 2025,” the company has subtly extended the deadline to “the end of 2025.” This 12-month delay comes amid alarming new data showing rapid deforestation in Brazil, the overwhelming majority of it driven by agricultural expansion, including soy cultivation linked to Cargill.
The change appears buried on page 107 of Cargill’s “Impact Report 2024,” which reads:
“[We] announced in November 2023 an accelerated commitment that will help further protect the region’s critical ecosystems. By the end of 2025, all the soy we originate in-country from both direct and indirect suppliers in Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay will be deforestation and conversion free (DCF).”
The report’s release of the news comes in the midst of a powerful grassroots cross-country tour in which Stand.earth Campaign Director Mathew Jacobson is visiting the houses of members of the Cargill-MacMillan family who own Cargill. At each house, Jacobson is delivering personalized messages to the family members and company owners, urging them to ensure that Cargill fulfills its deforestation-free promise. These messages, created by members of the Brazilian Indigenous tribe, the Munduruku people, are written in ashes collected from forests destroyed to make way for soy plantations. Jacobson’s delivery tour is a continuation of the message brought to life in a powerful 11-story mural in São Paulo, Brazil, created from the ashes of burned forests.
“When Cargill made the commitment to end deforestation by 2025, we were encouraged but skeptical because of the company’s long-standing practice of breaking its sustainability commitments,” Mathew Jacobson, Burning Legacy Campaign Director at Stand.Earth said. “This quiet deadline shift comes at a time when soy-driven ecosystem destruction in Brazil is skyrocketing. By choosing profits over promises, Cargill is complicit in the destruction of vital ecosystems and the loss of Indigenous lands.”
The mural, which highlights the environmental and human costs of deforestation, has received international acclaim, with coverage in The New York Times, The Associated Press, and Reuters. The artwork not only serves as a stark reminder of the destruction linked to agricultural expansion but also amplifies the voices of Indigenous communities like the Munduruku, who bear the brunt of this crisis.
With South America’s ecosystems in crisis and Indigenous communities bearing the brunt of deforestation, Cargill must act decisively to fulfill its promises and take responsibility for its supply chains’ impact on the planet.
Broken Promises Amid Escalating Deforestation
Over the last five years, Brazil has lost more than 20 million acres, or 32,000 square miles of native vegetation—an area larger than the state of Maine. Deforestation driven by agriculture accounts for more than 97% of that figure.
According to Satelligence, a geospatial monitoring company working with Cargill, soy-driven deforestation in Brazil has quadrupled from 150 square miles in 2020 to 600 square miles in 2023. Cargill is one of the top two exporters of soy and is exposed to nearly 100 square miles of deforestation risk annually, and more than doubled its profits in Brazil from 2022 to 2023.
Cargill originally pledged to eliminate deforestation and land conversion “by 2025,” positioning the commitment as an urgent response to protect South America’s ecosystems and address climate change.
In 2023, Pilar Cruz, Cargill’s Chief Sustainability Officer, stated: “Accelerating our commitment is a testament to our resolve to make real, tangible progress against deforestation and land conversion, while also supporting the livelihoods of farmers and agricultural communities that are vital to feeding the world.”
However, buried on page 107, the company’s 2024 “Impact Report” quietly shifts the timeline, pledging compliance only “by the end of 2025.” Critics argue this extension reveals a lack of urgency and accountability. More importantly, this delay is part of Cargill’s long history of making and breaking environmental, human rights and climate commitments.
A 2022 report in the International Journal of Management Studies and Social Science Research, concluded that this is a pattern at Cargill, undermining the company’s credibility, saying: “Cargill continues to adjust its goals for the future based on its inability to obtain its sustainability objectives in a timely manner.”
Profiting from Environmental Devastation
Despite its sustainability rhetoric, Cargill has increased its profits significantly in Brazil, doubling between 2022 and 2023 while remaining linked to large-scale deforestation risks.
A Call for Transparency and Immediate Action
Environmental organizations are urging Cargill to honor its original commitment and implement independent, transparent verification of its supply chains. The messages Jacobson is delivering this month to Cargill’s owners — written in the ashes of forests sacrificed for soy — serve as a powerful reminder of the environmental and human costs of broken promises.