AUTHOR=Rausch Lisa L. , Gibbs Holly K. 

TITLE=The Low Opportunity Costs of the Amazon Soy Moratorium

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Forests and Global Change

VOLUME=Volume 4 - 2021

YEAR=2021

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/forests-and-global-change/articles/10.3389/ffgc.2021.621685

DOI=10.3389/ffgc.2021.621685

ISSN=2624-893X

ABSTRACT=•	Brazil’s Amazon Soy Moratorium (ASM) contributed to overall reductions in Amazon deforestation since its implementation in 2006. 
•	Under the ASM, the Amazon soy sector maintains access to the growing share of the market that operates under zero-deforestation commitments. 
•	The ASM has been criticized as unfair to law-abiding producers.
•	Only 1% of the approximately 14,000 soy farms in the Amazon Biome have soy-suitable, forested areas that could be deforested lawfully (49,273 ha). 
•	More than half of Amazon soy farms have soy-suitable areas that were deforested before 2008 and used for soy in 2019 (1.7 Mha).
•	Taken together, these findings suggest that the opportunity costs of the ASM on current soy farms are low relative to the market access benefits.