What is the Soy Moratorium and why was it suspended?

Soybeans occupy a central position in the Brazilian economy. Estimates from Insper Agro Global, based on USDA data (2025), indicate that national production reached 65 million tons in the 2024/2025 harvest, cultivated on 20 million hectares, with an average productivity of 20 bags per hectare. These figures reflect the importance of the grain both for food security, as a basis for protein and animal feed, and for energy security, due to its role in biofuel production.

Beyond the domestic market, Brazil has established itself as one of the world's largest soybean exporters, strengthening its strategic role in global food security. According to estimates by Insper Agro Global based on data from MAPA – Agrostat (2025), soybean exports reached over 120 million tons in 2023, with China being the main destination.

The expansion of Brazilian soybean farming has brought significant economic gains, but it has also raised questions about its environmental impacts, especially in the Amazon biome. Beginning in the 2000s, international reports and campaigns began linking soybean production to deforestation, prompting companies, civil society organizations, and industry representatives to seek mechanisms to reduce this association.

It was in this context that, in 2006, the private agreement known as the Soy Moratorium was created, a voluntary commitment between companies, industry entities, and non-governmental organizations. The pact established that traders and industries would not buy soybeans from deforested areas in the Amazon biome, even if deforestation was permitted by law (a point that has generated much criticism). The agreement defined a timeframe for the expansion of soybean farming, conditioning increased production on the use of already cleared areas, and established itself as a sectoral self-regulation instrument based on independent monitoring and verification criteria.

The pact brought together companies responsible for a large portion of the soybean produced in the Amazon, establishing a sectoral self-regulation mechanism. Implementation of the agreement was led by the Soybean Working Group (GTS), composed of representatives from ABIOVE, ANEC, government agencies, and civil society organizations. The GTS is responsible for defining the monitoring rules and procedures, based on satellite imagery and independent audits of purchases made by the signatory companies. Monitoring is conducted by Agrosatélite, and the audits, coordinated by Imaflora, aim to verify compliance with the commitment to not purchase soybeans from areas deforested after the established milestone.

In the early years, monitoring combined satellite imagery and verification flyovers. With the advancement of remote sensing technologies, the method began to rely exclusively on imagery, allowing for the identification of crops across a wider geographic range.

With the enactment of the 2012 Forest Code, which established July 22, 2008, as the date for defining consolidated rural areas, the GTS adjusted the Moratorium's timeframe to align with national legislation. This new parameter came into effect starting with the 2014/15 harvest. Since then, the annual reports have provided a continuous historical series (2012/13 to 2021/22) of soybean monitoring in the Amazon based on this framework, which has enabled the observation of land use trends and compliance with the agreement.

Figure 1 - History of the soybean moratorium

Source: Prepared by Insper Agro Global based on the Soy Moratorium Portal (2025)

Several empirical studies have analyzed the effects of the Soy Moratorium on land use dynamics in the Amazon biome. The most frequently cited estimates indicate a significant drop in annual deforestation rates in soy-producing municipalities after the pact's adoption. Between 2002 and 2008, the period prior to its implementation, average deforestation in these municipalities was approximately 10.600 km² per year; after the agreement came into effect, this figure decreased to approximately 3.000 km² per year, representing a reduction of more than two-thirds, according to estimates from the Soy Moratorium Portal (2025). Studies published in international scientific journals corroborate these results. Research by Gibbs et al. (2015) in the journal Science showed that before the moratorium, approximately 30% of soybean expansion occurred in recently deforested areas, while after the pact, this percentage fell to 1%.

Although it achieved significant environmental results, the Soy Moratorium also sparked debate about its economic and institutional impacts. Several producers, especially in the Mato Grosso region, argued that the pact created unequal restrictions across biomes, since the limitation applied only to the Amazon, without considering other areas of agricultural expansion, such as the Cerrado. This territorial differentiation was interpreted by part of the productive sector as asymmetrical treatment, which limited expansion opportunities for some producers.

Furthermore, the agreement's governance was also the subject of questioning. Criticism highlighted the centralization of decision-making in large trading companies and international organizations, as well as the lack of mechanisms to ensure greater representation of rural producers, especially medium- and small-scale ones.

In 2023, Technical Note No. 18/2023 from the Brazilian Administrative Council for Economic Defense (CADE) analyzed some of these controversies, assessing the possible competitive effects of the moratorium. The document raised hypotheses about potential market entry barriers, price impacts, and risks of antitrust violations. The issue culminated in the August 2025 decision, when CADE ordered the immediate suspension of the Soy Moratorium and opened an investigation into the role of the signatory entities, including associations such as ABIOVE and ANEC.

The suspension represented a turning point for the governance of the soybean chain, creating an institutional vacuum after almost two decades of the agreement's validity and creating uncertainty about which instruments could replace its sectoral coordination function.

With the end of the Moratorium, the soybean chain enters a regulatory transition phase, and private socio-environmental certifications are taking center stage in the sector's governance. Programs such as the Round Table on Responsible Soy (RTRS), ProTerra, and ISCC offer verification and traceability systems based on environmental, social, and legal criteria, which have been adopted in response to international market demands—especially those of the European Union, with the EU's Combating Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) scheduled to come into effect in 2026.

The trend indicates that globally recognized certifications could fill part of the gap left by the moratorium, offering auditable and internationally comparable mechanisms. However, their expansion also poses challenges, such as membership costs, asymmetric access among producers, and the risk of concentrating benefits among larger-scale agents.

The consolidation of a new post-moratorium governance will depend on the ability to build inclusive instruments legitimized by different links in the chain—producers, industry, government, and civil society. In this context, strengthening national public traceability and certification initiatives, such as the Agro Brasil + Sustentável program, can complement private mechanisms, reducing fragmentation and ensuring predictability and transparency in market rules.

The experience of the Soy Moratorium shows that voluntary agreements can play a relevant role in coordinating complex supply chains, but it also highlights the need for balanced governance structures capable of ensuring competitiveness, legal certainty, and socio-environmental legitimacy for Brazilian agribusiness.

References and recommended readings:

Administrative Council for Economic Defense - CADE. Technical Note 18 – SEI_CADE – 1285202 – 087000002702018-72. 2023. Accessed on: August 18, 2024.

ESTADÃO. Aprosoja MT studies denouncing soy moratorium to CADE. Agro Estadão. Accessed on: August 18, 2024.

FORBES AGRO. Government agencies disagree on soy moratorium, increasing risks for trading companies. Forbes Brazil, August 22, 2025. Accessed September 11, 2025.

GIBBS, H.K.; RAUSCH, L.; MUNGER, J.; SCHELLY, I.; MORTON, DC; NOOJIPADY, P.; SOARES-FILHO, B.; BARRETO, P.; MICOL, L.; WALKER, NF Brazil's Soy Moratorium: Supply-chain governance is needed to avoid deforestation. Science, vol. 347, no. 6220, p. 377-378, 2015.

SOY MORATORIUM. Home. Accessed on: August 18, 2024.

Round Table on Responsible Soy (RTRS). Overview 2024: Global adoption of RTRS-certified material. May 15, 2025. Accessed September 11, 2025. [GMdC1]

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