ST. LOUIS — Bunge announced on Nov. 21 that it has achieved 100% traceability and monitoring of its direct and indirect soy purchases in priority regions of the Cerrado biome in Brazil. Priority regions at risk of deforestation in the Cerrado include the Brazilian States of Maranhão, Tocantins, Piauí, Bahia and Mato Grosso.

With the support of satellite monitoring, the company achieved 100% tracking and monitoring of its indirect supply chain in October, replicating the success reached with its direct purchases of soy in 2020. Direct purchases are commodities the company buys directly from farmers, while indirect purchases are purchased from local grain resellers.

Bunge said the goal was accomplished thanks to its Sustainable Partnership program, which fosters socio-environmental governance in the soy value chain. Since 2021, this initiative has shared knowledge, methodologies and tools with cooperatives and grain resellers to support them in structuring their own traceability, monitoring and supplier verification systems. Today, more than 90 resellers participate in the initiative in Brazil, the company said.

“We are proud to reach this major milestone in our 10-year journey to achieve traceable and verifiable supply chains, so that we reach our zero-deforestation goal in 2025,” said Rossano de Angelis Jr., Bunge’s vice president of Agribusiness in South America. “Reconciling the development of agriculture with the preservation of the environment depends on a collective journey and we are pleased to be a leader in working with other stakeholders in the industry.”

The Sustainable Partnership program provides resellers with access to the LYRA platform from the agtech company Vega Monitoramento. The program offers access to verification systems, such as satellite and farm-scale images, remote sensing, artificial intelligence, and structured data to advance traceability and monitoring and perform the socio-environmental diagnosis of agricultural properties. Bunge said its continued partnership with Vega also provides that a technical team from Vega will be specially dedicated to serving grain resellers, from providing support on using the tool to training on best practices for assessing socio-environmental compliance in the production chain.

“With the success of the program, we agreed with our technology partner Vega to make the tool available to other companies in the sector, so that they can also have their indirect supply chains tracked and monitored,” de Angelis Jr. said. “We believe in the power of collaboration and reiterate our commitment to continue to promote advanced sustainability standards and approaches in our sector.”