Day One.
Stories from Producers
Day one of RT14 drew to a powerful close with a series of compelling presentations from representatives of soy producers, beginning with Luiz Iaquinta from Fazendas Bartira in Brazil. • A cross
a series of slides he outlined impressive figures for the positive impact RTRS-certified farms were having across Brazil.
And Luiz Iaquinta outlined the scale of the operations too: • T he
average size of an RTRS-certified farm is 4,600 hectares;
• 8 5%
of global RTRS production is from Brazil, where there are 226 certified farms operating across more than one million hectares; and
• P rotecting a natural forest area costs farmers ton of RTRS soy has helped to preserve the equivalent of US$4 per hectare. 157 trees and stop the release of 16 tons of carbon; Having shown the enormous positive impact of certified production, he then went on to ltogether RTRS-certified farms have A challenge the rest of the soy supply chain to preserved 616 million trees in natural work harder on both demand, and prices. We forests and more than 64 million tons need to hear from the demand side, he said. of carbon stocked
• E ach
•
• N o
tillage technology enables producers to reduce GHG emissions and remove more than 1.8 million tons of carbon yearly;
• L ess
water used in agrochemicals applications and absence of exposed soil;
• A n
area of natural forest equal to six times the Amsterdam area has been preserved;
“We are paying out more than we are getting back from the market. What’s the price of sustainability? Less than 1%?.” Luiz Iaquinta, Fazendas Bartira
• A ll
RTRS farms have implemented waste management programmes and audits;
• R TRS
farms employ 10,000 people directly and more than 25,000 indirectly; and
• T here
are several social programmes for local communities and an average of 60 hours of training each year for every employee.
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