International market support for Mato Grosso’s Produce, Conserve and Include Plan

The government of the State of Mato Grosso, Brazil, and IDH, the Sustainable Trade Initiative, signed a partnership agreement in May 2016 to mark the cooperation between the government of Mato Grosso and IDH towards green and inclusive growth.

The partnership agreement will serve Governor Pedro Taques’ ambitious Produce, Conserve and Include (PCI) plan, unveiled at the COP21 in Paris last December. Governor Taques aims to eradicate illegal deforestation, rehabilitate large tracts of degraded forests, improve agricultural productivity and livelihoods of family farms, as well as double agricultural output.

IDH will support the Mato Grosso government in making PCI actionable, primarily through attracting international investments to the plan, by linking international commodity markets that supply from the state (soy, beef and cotton among others), and by helping to build public-private partnership structures to manage the investments through innovative financial solutions.

IDH has an extensive network of over 500 international front-running companies and civil society organizations that want to source responsible products and are willing to invest in plans, which can scale up production and conservation in critical sourcing areas worldwide. The Mato Grosso, being one of the largest soy, cotton, maize and beef producing regions in the world is of vital importance to companies sourcing these commodities. IDH will bring its network of companies; a decade of experience and knowledge in building public-private partnership structures that can jointly finance and implement the PCI goals.

Ted van der Put, executive board member of IDH: “Mato Grosso is a vital sourcing region for many companies worldwide and they all applaud the state’s PCI plan as well as governor Taques’ efforts to model in Mato Grosso  the compelling vision that economic production can be framed in a socially and environmentally responsible way.‘’

A group of leading civil society organizations and private companies primarily from the soy and beef industries in Mato Grosso have been instrumental in developing PCI. All are founding members of a public-private partnership driving the implementation of the plan.

“IDH’s partnership with the government of Mato Grosso will build on the hard work put in the public and private and partners that have created PCI. We very much look forward to working alongside them to realise its goals” said Mr van der Put.

Gustavo de Oliveira, State Secretary for Strategic Affairs of Mato Grosso and General Coordinator of the PCI Strategy said: “Following this, in the second half of this year we will present the actions and programs that will make up the PCI strategy so that together we can attract international resources to ensure a more equitable and homogeneous development for the State of Mato Grosso.”

The agreement signing took place during a meeting between the Mato Grosso government and the Consumers Good Forum (CGF), a network of over 400 international companies from over 70 countries with combined sales of R$ 10 trillion (EUR 2.5 trillion). The meeting was organised by IDH, CGF and ProForest.

Hugo Byrnes, Vice-President Product Integrity of Royal Ahold and Chair of the Soy Working Group of CGF said: “We support this partnership between the government of Mato Grosso and IDH as it is a step towards linking Brazilian forest conservation policy to the deforestation resolution and the soy sourcing guidelines of the Consumer Good Forum.”

IDH also has a long track record of convening and co-funding in Brazil, particularly in soy, cotton and coffee industries. Through Better Cotton Initiative for example, IDH co-funded projects through which 900,000 metric tons of responsible cotton was grown on 700,000 ha of land in 2014.

About PCI

Produce, Conserve and Include (PCI) is the name given to the Mato Grosso government’s green growth plan that aims to double the state’s economic output while reducing deforestation to zero and improving livelihoods of family farms and the indigenous population through economic inclusion. First unveiled at the Conference of the Parties (COP21) in Paris last December, the PCI includes ambitious goals to avoid 6 giga-tons of greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 through zero net deforestation, rehabilitating large tracts of degraded forests, raising productivity levels in soy and cattle industries as well as large-scale reforestation. PCI is a multi-stakeholder coalition that includes leading companies from soy and beef industries as well as a number of civil society organizations active in the area.

PCI Founding Partners:

The Government of Mato Grosso, Amaggi, Famato, Marfrig Global Foods, IDH, the Sustainable Trade Initiative, Earth Innovation Institute, Instituto de Pesquisa Ambiental da Amazonia (IPAM), Environmental Defence Fund (EDF), Instituto Socioambiental, Instituto Centro de Vida, AgroIcone, CIPEM, FETAGRI-MT.

Find out more about PCI here: http://www.mt.gov.br/