Tesco, Marks & Spencer and more EU brands threaten to stop using Brazilian agri products

Several European companies, including Tesco and Marks & Spencer, have threatened to quit utilising Brazilian agricultural goods if the country's Congress enacts a law extending the ownership of squatters on public land. Environmental advocates warn that the proposal will encourage deforestation by rewarding land grabbers in the Amazon rainforest who occupy properties illegally and often also continuous areas for agricultural use. Proponents of the bill maintain that only by taking the property into the legal system can they be required to comply with Brazil's stringent laws that restrict deforestation in the Amazon to 20 percent of private property.

The retailers, including Metro and John Lewis, as well as investors such as Norway's largest pension company KLP, have said that environmental protection in Brazil is increasingly inadequately, while the land bill could pose even greater threats to Amazon.

"If these or other measures that undermine this existing protection become law, we will have no option but to rethink our support and use of the Brazilian agricultural products supply chain," European companies said in an open letter to Brazilian lawmakers on Wednesday.

The bill was to be voted in the Senate of Brazil last week but was lifted amid criticism from environmentalists. Congress leaders said the issue needed to be discussed further and indicated that it could be put to the vote again this week.

The proposal was the second pressure from the government and allies of Congress to obtain approval for such a plan. Similar legislation was withdrawn in May 2020 following a boycott threat from many of the same companies.

The current Senate bill will provide for much larger and recently established properties to receive deeds.

The move comes at a test time for the government of President Jair Bolsonaro, as deforestation in Amazon's Brazil rose to a 12-year high in 2020.

Under international force headed by the United States, Bolsonaro promised at a leaders' summit in April to strengthen environmental protection and reaffirmed its commitment to end illegal deforestation by 2030.