Ukraine war: Global fertiliser crunch pressures Brazil’s Amazon

Sao Paulo, Brazil – Speaking to reporters three days after Russia began its invasion of Ukraine in late February, Brazil’s far-right President Jair Bolsonaro lamented his nation’s dependence on Russian fertilisers and took the opportunity to criticise Indigenous land rights. “We have potassium in abundance, but it is an Indigenous reserve.” The world’s largest soybean producer, Brazil is an agricultural powerhouse, with agribusiness accounting for about one quarter of national Gross Domestic Product. “Brazil Potash is an ESG company … Regarding the mining impacts, we have already completed exhaustive studies.” According to Espeschit, the project in Autazes would account for some 20 percent of Brazil’s demand for potassium. This April, the Oxycer Holding Company, based in the southern state of Parana, made 14 requests to Brazil’s National Mining Agency to research for potassium on Mura Indigenous lands, according to data seen by Al Jazeera. The data was collected by AmazoniaMinada, or “Mined Amazon”, a project that monitors mining requests in Brazil protected areas such as Indigenous lands, using records from the country’s National Mining Agency.