Announced in August 2022, the Cerrado Programme 1 provides financial incentives to farmers that meet its Eligibility Criteria with a focus on the protection of native vegetation in addition to legal requirements.
To be eligible for the Programme, farmers must be in full compliance with Brazil’s Forest Code, have an unquestionable right to use the land, and demonstrate that they and their farms do not contravene any environmental or legal requirements. Alongside this, the cultivation area to be financed must have been cleared before 1 January 2020 and must have native vegetation in excess of the requirements of Legal Reserves and Areas of Permanent Protection (APPs).
This first programme was designed to demonstrate this approach and provide the basis for scaling it up to protect vast tracts of native Cerrado vegetation in Brazil.
Implementation of the programme will reduce conversion of Cerrado habitats, conserve carbon stocks and biodiversity while supporting the production of deforestation and conversion-free soy.
The Cerrado Programme 1 is expected to generate the following impacts, over a four year period:
300,000 tonnes of deforestation- and conversion-free soy produced.
11,000 ha of native vegetation conserved, including 4,200 ha of Excess Legal Reserves that could, otherwise, be legally deforested
2.0 million tonnes of CO2e stored in forests maintained by the programme
The Cerrado Programme 1 has the financial support of the following companies:
Programme 1 sponsors:
The Cerrado Programme 1 was structured by the following organisations:
The area of cultivation must not have had any deforestation and conversion of native vegetation since 1 Jan 2020. Preference will be given to areas converted from abandoned pasture land to soy cultivation after 2008.
Farm land must be registered with the Cadastro Ambiental Rural (CAR) and be in full compliance with the Legal Reserve and APP requirements of the Code. The farm area must not overlap with public protected areas, indigenous lands and other traditional people and community lands (including ‘quilombolas territories’).
Farmers must have unquestionable right to use the land, be it as land title, land lease agreement, or another legally recognised form of land tenure (e.g., ‘posse’)
Farmers must demonstrate that they and their farms do not contravene any environmental or legal requirements, such as embargoes, environmental irregularities, contraventions of the labour legislation (including slave and child labour), non-compliance with the Soy Moratorium (if applicable), and internationally-accepted rules for the use of agrochemicals.