Rainforest Action Network: Rainforest Agribusiness

Rainforest Agribusiness

The Rainforest Agribusiness Campaign is challenging one of the fastest growing threats to the world’s tropical forests: the rapid expansion of industrial agriculture. Fueled in part by the growing demand for biofuels, U.S. agribusiness giants ADM, Bunge and Cargill are establishing soy and palm oil operations in some of the planet’s most biodiverse forests. Soy has become a major contributor to deforestation in the Amazon Rainforest and its surrounding wooded savanna, the Cerrado, while palm oil plantations are expanding at a rate of 2.5 million acres per year into the tropical forests of Indonesia, Malaysia and Papua New Guinea. Learn more.

Get the truth about biofuels

Biofuels began with a great dream: making fuel from oil or plant waste. But when agribusinesses got involved, the dream went bad.

Biofuels made from recycled waste products differ greatly from agrifuels – agribusinesses’ industrial alternative. To meet increasing demand for these fuels, U.S. agribusinesses are destroying pristine ecosystems to make way for palm and soy plantations. Clearing the rainforest furthers global warming by releasing massive amounts of carbon into the atmosphere and threatens to increase world hunger by diverting crops from food. Don’t support biofuels that come from newly cleared rainforests.

Agribusiness in the Rainforest: Stories from Frontline Communities

Energy

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Protect tropical ecosystems

Protecting tropical rainforests, which are home to more biodiversity than any other ecosystem, is key to protecting the planet’s health and curbing climate change.

The greatest threat to global rainforests is the rapid proliferation of soy and palm oil plantations owned by U.S. agribusinesses like ADM, Bunge and Cargill. RAN is calling on agribusinesses to protect these vital ecosystems by stopping industrial agrisprawl.

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Support local and Indigenous rainforest communities

Local and Indigenous communities are best positioned to sustainably manage the rainforests.

When U.S. agribusinesses clear-cut rainforests to make way for industrial soy and palm plantations, they don’t just destroy ecosystems—they destroy the communities that rely on them. RAN partners with local and Indigenous groups, drawing on their expertise and empowering them to successfully safeguard their land from industrial exploitation.

Human Rights

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Support small-scale family farmers

Small family farms can coexist with healthy ecosystems; factory farms can’t.

The massive soy and palm plantations U.S. agribusinesses are establishing in rainforests around the world squelch nearby subsistence farming and deprive local and Indigenous farmers of their traditional means of feeding themselves. Industrial farming does far more damage to the environment than small-scale family farming; it also displaces communities and corrodes traditional cultures. Support small-scale family farming in your purchases.

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Support workers' rights on soy and palm plantations

Workers on existing soy and palm oil plantations must be treated and paid fairly.

Factory farms squelch subsistence farming in nearby areas, leaving local people with no way to earn a living except by working on corporate-run plantations. Workers are often forced into “debt peonage,” which is essentially modern-day slavery. They are also exposed to the toxic chemicals that are an essential part of factory farming. RAN participates in roundtable discussions to ensure fair and safe conditions for these workers.