Cargill causes socio-environmental harm as a result of the construction and operation of the company’s infrastructure, including forced labor and child slavery. Cargill is known to source soy and cocoa from farms and production sites that employ child labor, especially in West Africa.
Despite Cargill’s public commitment to ethical practices and the elimination of child labor in its operations, activists and human rights organizations argue that the company has not done enough to eliminate human rights abuses from its supply chain.
Cargill’s sources from lands taken from Indigenous communities and its port and railway developments also continue to threaten the lives and livelihoods of Indigenous and traditional communities and violate their right to free, prior and informed consent (FPIC).
The world hangs by a thread
In the Amazon and other regions, land conversion for agriculture (e.g. soy cultivation and cattle ranching) has encroached upon Indigenous territories, leading to disputes over land rights and the destruction of habitats crucial for the livelihoods and cultures of Indigenous peoples.
Cargill must ensure their operations do not contribute to the violation of Indigenous rights and that they respect the principle of free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) when operating in or near Indigenous territories.
Refusing to Meet With Indigenous Leader
On October 12, 2023, Indigenous leader Beka Saw Munduruku travelled more than 4,000 miles to address the Cargill-MacMillan family over a litany of broken promises that pose an existential threat to her people and contribute to the global climate crisis.
Her visit to the company’s Minneapolis, Minnesota headquarters marked the first time an Indigenous leader from Brazil took Cargill to task on their home turf for the deforestation and human rights abuses it has pledged to end but continues nonetheless. The family ignored requests to meet, and after the long journey to the family offices in Wayzata, MN, she was intercepted in the parking lot by security guards and denied access.
The Munduruku people of the Tapajós River basin are routinely confronted with the destructive activities of Brazil’s soy trade. And despite Cargill’s numerous commitments to eliminate deforestation and human rights abuses from their supply chain, they are in the process of dramatically increasing infrastructure in high-risk areas of South America, including the territory of the Munduruku.
The worst example of Cargill’s unceasing expansion is the Ferrogrão—a 1,000-kilometer railway that Cargill wishes to cut through Indigenous lands in the Amazon to transport soy and other grains produced from the destruction of the Cerrado – a critical ecosystem to the south – to ports on the Tapajós and Amazon rivers where it will be shipped to Europe and China for animal feed.
Last year, the forests and savannas of the Cerrado were destroyed at a rate of 8,000 acres a day. This is an area of destruction the size of Minneapolis every five days. Half of the Cerrado’s 10,000 species of plant aren’t found anywhere else in the world. It is home to nearly a thousand birds and three hundred mammals.
The construction of the railway will destroy 2,000 square kilometres of the Amazon forests, including currently federally protected Indigenous Territory. The path of the Ferrogrão will impact six Indigenous lands, 17 conservation units and three isolated tribes. According to a policy brief by the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), the project will cause severe socio-environmental damage to Indigenous populations, opening their lands to more land grabbers and illegal miners and loggers that already invade and burn the forest and murder the Indigenous people who oppose them.
The Brazilian Supreme Court has ruled that the Ferrogrão is illegal, but economic interests like Cargill want to change the laws to allow for construction.
Brazil’s Cargill president, Paolo Sousa, recently said that anyone who opposes the Ferrogrão is “irresponsible.”
