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Many companies sourcing agricultural commodities with high deforestation risk have committed to zerodeforestation, meaning they intend to eliminate deforestation from their supply chains. While previous researchhas attempted to assess progress against such initiatives, little is known about how the characteristics of sourcingpatterns may influence the adoption and potential effectiveness of zero-deforestation commitments. Supply chainstickiness – here defined as the geographic persistence in trade relationships between traders and sourcing regionsover time – may reflect lock-in effects and the level of trust between the parties involved. Here, we use ametric of supply chain stickiness, calculated from temporal network analyses on the Brazilian soy export supply chain, as a proxy for these underlying dynamics to explore their effect on the adoption and effectiveness of zerodeforestation commitments (ZDCs). Using data for 2004–2017, we find that although stickier traders are morelikely to adopt ZDCs, they also appear to have less effective ZDCs than other traders (as indicated by the level ofsoy and territorial deforestation in their sourcing regions). This finding suggests that additional strategies areneeded to increase the effectiveness of ZDCs.

The global trade of agricultural commodities has profound social-ecological impacts, from potentially increasing food availability and agricultural efficiency, to displacing local communities, and to incentivizing environmental destruction. Supply chain stickiness, understood as the stability in trading relationships between supply chain actors, moderates the impacts of agricultural commodity production and the possibilities for supply-chain interventions. However, what factors determine stickiness, that is, how and why farmers, traders, food processors, and consumer countries, develop and maintain trading relationships with specific producing regions, remains unclear. Here, we use data on the Brazilian soy supply chain, a mixed methods approach based on extensive actor-based fieldwork, and an explanatory regression model, to identify and explore the factors that influence stickiness between places of production and supply chain actors. We find four groups of factors to be important: economic incentives, institutional enablers and constraints, social and power dimensions, and biophysical and technological conditions. Among the factors we explore, surplus capacity in soy processing infrastructure, (i.e., crushing and storage facilities) is important in increasing stickiness, as is export-oriented production. Conversely, volatility in market demand expressed by farm-gate soy prices and lower land-tenure security are key factors reducing stickiness. Importantly, we uncover heterogeneity and context-specificity in the factors determining stickiness, suggesting tailored supply-chain interventions are beneficial. Understanding supply chain stickiness does not, in itself, provide silver-bullet solutions to stopping deforestation, but it is a crucial prerequisite to understanding the relationships between supply chain actors and producing regions, identifying entry points for supply chain sustainability interventions, assessing the effectiveness of such interventions, forecasting the restructuring of trade flows, and considering sourcing patterns of supply chain actors in territorial planning., Global Environmental Change, 78, ISSN:0959-3780, ISSN:1872-9495

This article documents the degree of noncompliance of soy producers in the Amazon portion of Mato Grosso with Brazil’s Forest Code and addresses the importance of market demands in shifting agricultural production and land occupation towards zero deforestation. By using a sample composed of the boundaries of 9,113 properties (72.5% of soy in the region) we assessed: a) compliance with Forest Code legal reserve requirements (a percentage of the property must have its original vegetation kept undisturbed); and compared it to b) compliance with the zero deforestation criterion of the soy moratorium. We found that 82% of the sampled properties have not deforested since 2008, thus complying with the soy moratorium. However, approximately 65% out of these 82% are noncompliant with Forest Code legal reserve requirements. This situation is even worse in the Cerrado portion of Mato Grosso. Even though the soy moratorium criterion is only applicable to the Amazon biome, the Forest Code is applicable nationwide. Despite legal reserve requirements being much lower (35% of the property in the Cerrado, as opposed to 80% in the Amazon), almost 70% of sampled properties were noncompliant with the Forest Code. From this analysis we concluded that while there was a role for consumer-driven market demand for zero deforestation soy production, there is still a need (and opportunity) to implement purchasing and financing criteria to promote compliance with Forest Code requirements in regards to legal reserve deficits. We believe that if this succeeds, it will drive a process of restoration and compensation of Forest Code deficits, strengthening public policy as well as reducing economic distortions between those who have and have not complied with Forest Code requirements.