Agronaro or Bolsoagro?
Since his time as a congressman, Jair Bolsonaro has flirted with agribusiness and its power in the Brazilian economy, and in the last five years this support has grown even stronger. Large agribusiness companies and brands benefit from the way Bolsonaro's government conducts the negotiations and interests of these brands. Corroborating the facilitation of interests, the transfer of the Brazilian Forest Service to the Ministry of Agriculture shows that much is done to benefit AGRO. Besides the forestry area, the Ministry also became responsible for: the identification, delimitation, demarcation and registration of indigenous and quilombola lands. Such competencies were previously exercised by the National Indian Foundation (Funai) and the National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform (Incra). Another change we can highlight in relation to the Ministry was the change of minister. Out goes Ricardo Salles, and in comes Joaquim Álvaro Pereira Leite, both ministers fomenting clashes between ruralists and indigenous communities over territorial and constitutional rights.
Salles has always assisted in boycotting investigations into deforestation and the illegal exportation of precious woods. The silence in the face of reports of mistreatment, murder and corruption that harm indigenous peoples, as well as the financing of undemocratic actions by agribusiness companies and associations, made us investigate and analyze every trace of agro that Bolsonaro carries in his hands. Antonio Galvan, president of Aprosoja Brasil, who acted directly in calling people to the anti-democratic act that supported Bolsorano and the leaders of the rural union of Sinop and Sorriso (Ilson José Redivo and Tiago Stefanello). He is former president of Aprosoja-MT, former president of the Rural Union of Sinop and former director of Famato. During his time at Aprosoja-MT, he attracted a lot of attention with regard to suspicions of corruption.
The suspicion is that he used Fethab resources (in all Aprosoja received R$ 138 million from the government through FETHAB between 2019 and 2021) to benefit his current wife and lawyer, Paula Boaventura. Of 171 contracts from the year 2020, 70% of them had irregularities due to missing documents. Among them would be the R$1.5 million contract with Paula Boaventura. All contracts were approved by a General Assembly formed by less than 2% of the members of Aprosoja-MT. According to the Federal District Inquiry 4.879, resources would also have been used to finance the anti-democratic acts. It is important to mention that there are members of Aprosoja-MT inside Fethab, such as Adair Ivanei Freitag, appointed to compose the Municipal Council of FETHAB, representing the Rural Producers Union. Ilson Redivo, president of the Rural Union of Sinop, stated in an interview to the newspaper:
"We are supporting this government and we are going to move, yes. The STF judges, sentences, and does whatever it wants. We will lead this movement that belongs to the population".
While the website of the Sorriso Rural Union displays, at the very beginning, a large banner supporting Jair Bolsonaro.
The company IAGRO (Agência Nacional de Defesa Sanitária Animal e Vegeral) was the target of a corruption investigation, where, the CPI da Sonegação approved the convocation of its then president, Antônio Galvan, in order to explain the suspected corruption with resources from FETHAB (Fundo Estadual de Transporte e Habitação). In the period 2019 to 2021, Aprosoja received R$138 million from the state government via FETHAB, the money is the result of an agreement to strengthen the Mato Grosso Institute of Agribusiness (Igro).
Galvan is no longer legally connected to the IAGRO company, and in his place came Fernando Cadore, as partner and also President of Aprosoja MT. The same was present in the anti-democratic acts pro Bolsonaro on September 7, showing that the entity followed the political base and decided to support the demonstration. This same demonstration was financed and supported by the IPA, Aprosoja/MT, among other soy industry institutions.
In an interview on 09/01/2021 for the youtube channel "Tempo&Dinheiro", Antonio Galvan says that the "mainstream media" hid the demonstrations in favor of the current government. He also says that (the government) is "no miracle worker," and that Bolsonaro is doing what any Brazilian wanted from a president (ending corruption and preserving rights). At various points in the interview he cites the agribusiness sector as being the big victim of fakenews, however, he did not cite any examples of these events. Galvan mentions that Sérgio Reis' visit to the assembly, where all the representatives of the state Agribusinesses were gathered, was a mere coincidence of dates, and that ABAG (Associação Brasileira do Agronegócio), for being against the current government and against the time limit, does not represent Aprosoja's ideas.
The president of ABAG, Marcelo Brito, in an interview for the program Roda Viva on 08/30/2021, points out that the defense of indigenous rights will not cause any harm to Brazilian agribusiness. In counterpoint, APROSOJA is present in the trial as amicus curiae (institution that aims to provide subsidies to the decisions of the courts), having as representative the lawyer Felipe Camargo defending the Temporal Milestone. The problem is that the condition of amicus curiae is given to a third party that is not a party in the process, having its only role to provide the jury with information that may have gone unnoticed, and that is possibly relevant to the issue. Felipe Camargo is with Ferraz Advogados Associados, a law firm in the Federal District that has as one of its areas of practice the defense of agribusiness. Another lawyer, Rudy Maia Ferraz, from the same law firm, defends CNA (National Confederation of Agriculture) in the Temporal Milestone case. Therefore, the amicus curiae of the case is directly linked to one of the parties in the case. Also, from the same law firm, Julia Bittencourt Afflalo, lawyer who acts in the case of land title regularization and general rules for environmental licensing, is a legal consultant to the Parliamentary Front for Agriculture and Livestock.
Antônio Galvan and such institutions, such as Aprosoja-MT, are also linked to the Ferrogrão Project and the Agro Xavante project. In 2018, Aprosoja-MT approved the creation of a contribution fund to cover the investment in the Ferrogrão project (influenced by Eraí Maggi), while, Antônio Galvan considered advantageous for farmers, the creation of the railway line, whose main objective is to drain grain production from Mato Grosso to Pará. The line is almost 1,000 km long and passes through 48 preservation areas, including indigenous lands. Several indigenous communities that would be affected have fought against the project. According to Alessandra Korap Munduruku, resident of the village Praia do Índio:
"to build Ferrogrão they need to deforest more, produce more poison that goes into the streams, the rivers and ends up affecting us. It generates a very big impact, yes, they say that because they don't live here, they don't depend on the river and the land [...]"
The project also included the presence of multinational companies such as Amaggi, Louis Dreyfus Company, Bunge, and Cargill. Two of them (Bunge and Cargill), according to the portal "De olho nos Ruralistas", fund, along with other companies such as Bayer, Basf, BRF, and JBF, the Instituto Pensar Agro (IPA), which is directly involved with the Agriculture and Livestock Parliamentary Front.
The Agro Xavante project, on the other hand, aimed to create an agricultural cooperative within Xavante territories for rice cultivation (specifically in the Sangradouro Indigenous Land). This project also did not have the support of the indigenous people. According to the Xavante Warã Association:
"[t]he federal government is taking advantage of the indigenous people as a 'laboratory' for the implementation of an anti-indigenous policy encouraged by the current management of Funai."
There was no consultation with the residents about the implementation of the project, and the amount of hectares deforested exceeded that informed in the project (of five hectares). Another resident reports a great threat to the Xavante ancestry, also considering that no anthropological report on the impacts of the project on the culture of that people was made. Present at the opening of the Agro Xavante project were: Antônio Galvan, Marcelo Xavier (president of Funai) and other politicians, such as Nelson Barbudo (PSL), José Medeiros (Podemos), Gilberto Cattani (PSL) and Neri Geller (PP). This is directly linked to Bill No. 191/2020, signed by the federal government and, supported by the president of Funai, which aims to research and exploitation of resources on indigenous lands.
One of the companies that drew attention was Amaggi, it is part of the membership of the Brazilian Association of Soybean Seed Producers (ABRASS) and, a strong name in the scenario. Its main partner is Blairo Maggi, who when he was ahead of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply was investigated by the Public Ministry. Blairo Maggi marks his presence in the letter to the Bolsonaro government, asking for more ambitious goals for the environment. In the past there was an investigation of companies linked to deforestation, where:
"According to prosecutors, between 2012 and 2015, the Amaggi group, together with the Bom Futuro group and JBS S/A, carried out financial transactions of R$10 million for cattle rancher Antônio José Junqueira Vilela Filho, known as AJ or Jotinha, arrested in Operation Flying River, triggered by PF in June, and Ricardo Caldeira Viacava, AJ's brother-in-law."
The same company, had connection to the controversy of pesticides, when a campaign favorable to pesticides was created developed by Giusti Comunicação - a company specialized in crisis management - having among its clients, Blairo Maggi himself (target of searches and seizures in a Federal Police operation against corruption in his state), the construction company Camargo Corrêa (involved in corruption cases investigated in the Lava Jato operation) and Senator Flávio Bolsonaro (PSL-RJ), son of the President of the Republic, who is under investigation for having an active criminal organization in his office while he was a state deputy.
A detail that cannot be forgotten is that on 05/12/2021, Nilson Leitão, until then president of the Instituto Pensar Agro (IPA), together with Congressman Sérgio Souza, president of the Parliamentary Front for Agriculture and Livestock (FPA), participated in a meeting with Bolsonaro to present Agro Fraterno, which will be addressed in our next operation: Plantation of Blood. Jair and agribusiness have always been in search of power, the alliance between them has become increasingly consistent, and to the extent that agribusiness companies and brands benefit from the policies set by the president, the greater are the loopholes in future trials and inquiries. The manipulation of the powers that identify, delimit, and demarcate indigenous and quilombola lands shows that power is held by people who have no conscience whatsoever regarding the respect for native peoples, and that they should have their lands "discovered" again, however, now by agribusinessmen.
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