Global Value Chains, Environmental Governance, and Soy Production in the Brazilian Amazon

The agri-food systems, amidst the global climate crisis, have been increasingly pressured to adopt more sustainable practices, especially when they are one of the drivers of deforestation of native vegetation. In an effort to reduce the vast 'implementation deficit' that characterizes sustainability efforts in agricultural commodity chains, environmental governance initiatives have expanded through the creation and implementation of various instruments, such as the recent regulations by the European Union and the United Kingdom, which block the import of certain agri-food products from deforested areas. In the case of Brazil, soy will be one of the activities most affected by the new regulations. Therefore, this research seeks, based on the international debate on environmental governance in global value chains, to examine the regulations established by the European Union and the United Kingdom and their effects on the import of Brazilian soy, focusing on the analysis of the dynamics and strategies developed by soy producers to comply with, circumvent, or "bypass" these rules in certain territories of the Brazilian Amazon. The focus on the Amazon is due both to it being the main zone of soy expansion in the country today and to its importance in addressing the global climate crisis. By combining qualitative and quantitative methods, this research integrates various methodological tools, such as literature and document reviews, monitoring of press coverage, and processing of secondary statistical data. Field research was also conducted in three territories of the Brazilian Amazon (Northern Mato Grosso, Western Pará, and Roraima), which share common characteristics such as increasing deforestation and soy expansion, in addition to exporting soybeans to the European Union and the United Kingdom.