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Amazon's soy shipping route to Brazil is disrupted by protests and poor roads

The poor road conditions and protests by indigenous groups have caused the shipment of Brazil's bumper soya bean crop to be delayed this week at the port of Miritituba, in the Amazon rainforest. This is where major grain traders such as Cargill and Bunge operate.

The demand for soy, which is produced and exported by Brazil, the largest producer in the world, has risen dramatically. China is the world's No. 1 soybean consumer, as traders prepare for a potential trade war that could discourage Chinese imports.

Miritituba loaded 15 million tons soy and corn onto barges last year, bound for larger ports on the river. This represents more than 10% of Brazil's total grain exports. The port's volume is expected to increase by around 20% in this year.

At certain times of the day, protesters from the Munduruku tribe have blocked a major stretch of the Transamazonian Highway in Miritituba to pressurize Brazil's Supreme Court into overturning a law passed in 2023 that was intended to limit their land rights.

This has caused traffic to worsen along a five-kilometer unpaved stretch of road. The trucking group ANATC reported that the traffic had left some cargos at Miritituba waiting for three days before they could be unloaded.

AMPORT, the company that represents the biggest firms shipping out of the terminal, has said that truckers who have pre-scheduled their access to the port do not experience these wait times.

AMPORT president Flavio Acauassu estimates that each hour the protesters blockade the terminal, at least 12,000 tonnes of soybeans are prevented from arriving.

Via Brasil BR-163, the company that administers the 1,009 km (627 miles), of highway connecting farms in Mato Grosso to the river port said a new entrance will be built once courts grant it permission to expropriate specific areas.

According to Munduruku representatives, the frustrations between truckers' and Indigenous protesters have escalated into violent incidents.

They wrote: "Our fight is peaceful but we are suffering from attacks and threats by truck drivers including insults and stone throwing as well as dangerous driving and gun shots."

Rafael Modesto is an attorney for the Indigenous Missionary Council that represents Indigenous interests in the Supreme Court. He said the protest was a reflection of native peoples' fears about losing their land to a rapidly expanding farm frontier.

Brazil's powerful farm lobby in the Brazilian Congress has been at odds over a proposed deadline for new reservations of lands on which Indigenous people did not live in 1988.

He said: "We think that if any proposal to change the Constitution text is passed, then demonstrations such as this one could become more common all over Brazil." (Reporting Ana Mano Additional Reporting by Manuela Andreoni Editors Brad Haynes, Alistair Bell and Brad Haynes)

(source: Reuters)