SPECIAL REPORTS AND PROJECTS
International Finance Corporation Should Stop Bankrolling Destructive Agribusiness
Published
3 years agoon

In late June, the World Bank’s private sector arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), approved a US$200M loan to agribusiness giant Louis Dreyfus Company (LDC). Under the guise of “sustainable development,” the loan will be used to purchase soy and corn—mostly destined for factory farms—grown on industrial mega-farms in Brazil’s heavily threatened Cerrado.
A biodiversity hotspot that is home to 5 percent of the world’s animals and plants and 216 Indigenous territories, the Cerrado has already lost half its native vegetation to cattle ranches and mechanized soy and corn mega-farms. LDC is just one of many agribusinesses, including Cargill, Bunge, JBS, and Marfrig, whose beef and animal feed operations are threatening to drive this ecosystem towards total destruction by 2030.
While IFC claims that its loan to LDC will “address higher demand and escalating food prices in an environmentally sustainable and socially inclusive way,” in reality, this investment will drive further environmental destruction and disenfranchisement of local and indigenous communities while enriching one of the world’s wealthiest and most powerful industrial agribusinesses. In 2020, LDC generated US$49 billion in revenue and has US$3.5 billion in public and private financing available. With limited public investment in sustainable agriculture, one must ask why taxpayer funds are being used to support this well-resourced mega-corporation that has contributed to Cerrado ecosystem destruction over the past decade.
Since late May, Friends of the Earth, members of the Stop Financing Factory Farming (SFFF) Campaign and 230+ civil society organizations (CSOs) from around the world have fought to block the investment. In numerous letters to the IFC and its government shareholders, groups documented how this investment is at odds with the bank’s own environmental policies and its commitment to align lending with the Paris Agreement and United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Supporting industrial animal feed production does not advance the UN Sustainable Development Goals
The IFC justified its US$200 million loan by claiming that the funds would help to reduce deforestation through “support [for] a portfolio of eligible soy and corn farmers in Brazil that are committed to zero deforestation and conversion of native vegetation.” But these “eligible farmers” are multi-thousand-acre industrial operations located in the states of Goiás, Mato Grosso, and Minas Gerais, which are already largely deforested. Even if incentives set up under the loan could prevent future land conversions, deforestation is only one of the many environmental and social impacts that should be addressed by public financing for a company like LDC.
Completely ignored in IFC’s loan analysis are the additional negative impacts of industrial farms’ use of pesticides and fertilizers on climate and air, soil and water resources. Also ignored were harmful social impacts of these operations, including pesticide-related illness and death, including among children, as well as the potential for land-grabbing, local community conflicts and the displacement of smallholder farmers.
Failure to address these serious issues undermines the IFC’s stated commitment to help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. A 2019 German government report documents how large-scale soy operations in the Cerrado and elsewhere “are associated with social injustice and…environmental degradation that hinders the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).” According to this report, agribusiness operations in the region threaten at least 8 of the 17 SDGs, including: 1: No Poverty, 2: Zero Hunger, 3: Good Health and Well-Being, 12: Responsible Consumption and Production and 13: Climate Action.
A coherent strategy to make LDC’s soy and corn operations more “sustainable” would have required a shift in agricultural practices that reduce fossil fuel, pesticide and synthetic fertilizer use, as CSOs explained. A more “inclusive” and food security-centered strategy would ensure at least some support for smallholder, lower-carbon, regenerative crop systems and increased land access for traditional communities.
Diverting resources to feed animals instead of humans also threatens to aggravate the current global hunger crisis. As the crisis intensifies, the world’s 800 million+ hungry people would be better served by public development banks using taxpayer funds to support the production of diversified, truly sustainable and nutritious food rather than feed for factory farms that churn out cheap meat and dairy products for consumption in higher-income countries.
Paris Agreement misalignment: LDC is a major laggard on climate
The IFC’s support for a company that has failed to set sufficient GHG reduction targets is at odds with the bank’s commitment to aligning its investments with the Paris Agreement.
Unlike some of its peers, LDC has yet to set Paris-aligned reduction targets for its GHG emissions. The company has committed to only meager 1 percent reductions in its Scope 1 and 2 emissions (those generated by the operations or activities the company controls). Even more important, LDC has yet to calculate its Scope 3 emissions (those generated by operations or activities a company does not control, including soy production), which likely make up more than 90 percent of the company total. At a minimum, the IFC and other public development banks should require any company benefiting from its preferential financing to set Paris-aligned GHG reduction targets.
Now that the LDC loan has been approved, IFC must be held accountable for its impacts
Together with global allies and partners on the ground in Brazil, the Stop Financing Factory Farming Campaign will continue to track LDC’s activities and demand accountability from the IFC for the harmful impacts of its lending. In a letter responding to the loan approval, more than 100 organizations have asked that the IFC disclose the names and locations of the industrial operations its funds will support so that groups on the ground can monitor the impacts of its investment. We have also asked that the IFC urge LDC to cut ties with suppliers known to be involved in illegal deforestation, land grabbing and/or other human rights violations.
The campaign will also continue to urge the IFC and its government shareholders to shift lending away from industrial livestock and monoculture feed production and toward smallholder, lower-carbon regenerative mixed crop systems. Such a shift would square with the World Bank’s own guidance concerning development banks’ role in encouraging capital investments that “incentivize more sustainable practices—properly valuing ecosystem services and mobilizing resources, knowledge and technology for smallholders, indigenous peoples and other producers to support a more equitable way of producing and consuming food.”
Source: FoodTank
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SPECIAL REPORTS AND PROJECTS
Top 10 agribusiness giants: corporate concentration in food & farming in 2025
Published
2 months agoon
August 28, 2025


Ranking
|
Company (Headquarters)
|
Sales in 2023
(US$ millions)
|
% Global market share 19
|
1
|
Bayer (Germany)20
|
11,613
|
23
|
2
|
Corteva (US)21
|
9,472
|
19
|
3
|
Syngenta (China/Switzerland)22
|
4,751
|
10
|
4
|
BASF (Germany)23
|
2,122
|
4
|
Total top 4
|
27,958
|
56
|
|
5
|
Vilmorin & Cie (Groupe Limagrain) (France)24
|
1,984
|
4
|
6
|
KWS (Germany)25
|
1,815
|
4
|
7
|
DLF Seeds (Denmark)26
|
838
|
2
|
8
|
Sakata Seeds (Japan)27
|
649
|
1
|
9
|
Kaneko Seeds (Japan)28
|
451
|
0.9
|
Total top 9
|
33,695
|
67
|
|
Total world market29
|
50,000
|
100%
|
Ranking
|
Company (Headquarters)
|
Sales in 2023
(US$ millions)
|
% Global market share
|
1
|
Syngenta (China/Switzerland)43
|
20,066
|
25
|
2
|
Bayer (Germany)44
|
11,860
|
15
|
3
|
BASF (Germany)45
|
8,793
|
11
|
4
|
Corteva (US)46
|
7,754
|
10
|
Total top 4
|
48,472
|
61
|
|
5
|
UPL (India)47
|
5,925
|
8
|
6
|
FMC (Germany)48
|
4,487
|
6
|
7
|
Sumitomo (Japan)49
|
3,824
|
5
|
8
|
Nufarm (Australia)50
|
2,056
|
3
|
9
|
Rainbow Agro (China)51
|
1,623
|
2
|
10
|
Jiangsu Yangnong Chemical Co., Ltd. (China)52
|
1,595
|
2
|
Total top 10
|
67,982
|
86
|
|
Total world market53
|
79,000
|
100
|

Ranking
|
Company (Headquarters)
|
Sales in 2023
(US$ millions)
|
% Global market share
|
1
|
Nutrien (Canada)72
|
15,673
|
8
|
2
|
The Mosaic Company (US)73
|
12,782
|
7
|
3
|
Yara (Norway)74
|
11,688
|
6
|
4
|
CF Industries Holdings, Inc, (US)75
|
6,631
|
3
|
Total top 4
|
46,774
|
24
|
|
5
|
ICL Group Ltd. (Israel)76
|
6,294
|
3
|
6
|
OCP (Morocco)77
|
5,967
|
3
|
7
|
PhosAgro (Russia)78
|
4,989
|
3
|
8
|
MCC EuroChem Joint Stock Company (EuroChem) (Switzerland/Russia)79
|
4,298
|
2
|
9
|
OCI (Netherlands)80
|
4,188
|
2
|
10
|
Uralkali (Russia)81
|
3,497
|
2
|
Total top 10
|
76,007
|
39
|
|
Total world market82
|
196,000
|
100
|

Ranking
|
Company (Headquarters)
|
Sales in 2023
(US$ millions)
|
% Global market share
|
1
|
Deere and Co. (US)89
|
26,790
|
15
|
2
|
CNH Industrial (UK/Netherlands)90
|
18,148
|
10
|
4
|
AGCO (US)91
|
14,412
|
8
|
3
|
Kubota (Japan)92
|
14,233
|
8
|
Total top 4
|
73,583
|
43
|
|
5
|
CLAAS (Germany)93
|
6,561
|
4
|
6
|
Mahindra and Mahindra (India)94
|
3,156
|
2
|
7
|
SDF Group (Italy)95
|
2,197
|
1
|
8
|
Kuhn Group (Switzerland)96
|
1,583
|
0.9
|
9
|
YTO Group (China)97
|
1,493
|
0.9
|
10
|
Iseki Group (Japan)98
|
1,057
|
0.6
|
Total top 10
|
89,629
|
52
|
|
Total world market99
|
173,000
|
100
|

Ranking
|
Company (Headquarters)
|
Sales in 2023
(US$ millions)
|
% Global market share
|
1
|
Zoetis (US)115
|
8,544
|
18
|
2
|
Merck & Co (MSD) (US)116
|
5,625
|
12
|
3
|
Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health (Germany)117
|
5,100
|
11
|
4
|
Elanco (US)118
|
4,417
|
9
|
Total top 4
|
23,686
|
49
|
|
5
|
Idexx Laboratories (US)119
|
3,474
|
7
|
6
|
Ceva Santé Animale (France)120
|
1,752
|
4
|
7
|
Virbac (France)121
|
1,348
|
3
|
8
|
Phibro Animal Health Corporation (US)122
|
978
|
2
|
9
|
Dechra (UK)123
|
917
|
2
|
10
|
Vetoquinol (France)124
|
572
|
1
|
Total top 10
|
32,727
|
68
|
|
Total world market125
|
48,000
|
100
|

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SPECIAL REPORTS AND PROJECTS
Maasai demand Volkswagen pull out of carbon offset scheme on their lands
Published
3 months agoon
July 24, 2025
Maasai Indigenous people in Tanzania have called on Volkswagen (VW) to withdraw from a controversial carbon credits scheme which violates their rights and threatens to wreck their livelihoods.
In a statement, the Maasai International Solidarity Alliance (MISA) denounced the “loss of control or use” of vital Maasai grazing grounds, and accused VW of making “false and misleading claims” about Maasai participation in decision making about the project.
Many Maasai pastoralists have already been evicted from large parts of their grazing lands for national parks and game reserves, with highly lucrative tourist businesses operating in them. Now a major new carbon-credit generating project by Volkswagen ClimatePartner (VWCP) and US-based carbon offset company Soils for the Future Tanzania is taking control of large parts of their remaining lands, and threatening livelihoods by upending long-standing Maasai grazing practices.
The Maasai have not given their free, prior and informed consent for the project. They fear it will restrict their access to crucial refuge areas in times of drought, and threaten their food security.
Ngisha Sinyok, a Maasai community member from Eluai village, which is struggling to withdraw from the project, told Survival: “Our livestock is going to be depleted. We will end up not having a single cow.” Asked about VW’s involvement in the project, he replied, “It is not a solution to climate change. It is just a business for people to make money using our environment. It has nothing to do with climate change.”
Another Maasai man, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals, said: “They use their money to control us.” A third said: “Maasailand never had a price tag. In Maasailand, there is no privatization. Our land is communal.”
Survival International’s Director of Research and Advocacy, Fiona Watson, said today: “The carbon project that Volkswagen supports violates the Maasai’s rights and will be disastrous for their lives, all so the company can carry on polluting and greenwash its image. It takes away the Maasai’s control over their own lands and relies on the false and colonial assumption that they are destroying their lands — which is not supported by evidence.
“The Maasai have been grazing cattle on the plains of East Africa since time immemorial. They know the land and how to manage it better than carbon project developers seeking to make millions from their lands.”
VW’s investment in the project, whose official name is the “Longido and Monduli Rangelands Carbon Project”, is believed to run to several million dollars, and has contributed to corruption and tensions in northern Tanzania, according to MISA’s report on the project.
An adjacent project in southern Kenya, also run by Soils for the Future, is beset with similar problems, and has already sparked resistance from local communities.
Survival International’s Blood Carbon report revealed that the whole basis for these “soil carbon” projects is flawed, and unsupported by evidence. Survival documented similar problems with the highly controversial Northern Kenya Grasslands Carbon Project. That project suffered a blow in a Kenyan court and was suspended and put under review by Verra, the carbon credit verification agency, for an unprecedented second time.
Source: Survival International
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SPECIAL REPORTS AND PROJECTS
Seizing the Jubilee moment: Cancel the debt to unlock Africa’s clean energy future
Published
3 months agoon
July 12, 2025
Africa has the resources and the vision for a just energy transition, but it is trapped in a financial system structured to take more than it gives. In this blog, we outline how debt burdens and climate impacts are holding the continent back, and looks at the role of institutions that shape the global financial order, like the World Bank, African Development Bank and IMF. As these institutions and governments meet in Seville for FfD4, we urge them to heed people’s calls for reform: cancel the debt, redistribute the wealth, and fund the just transition. — By Rajneesh Bhuee and Lola Allen
With 60% of the world’s best solar energy resources and 70% of the cobalt essential for electric vehicle batteries, the African continent has everything it needs to power its development and become a global reference point for sustainable energy production. That potential, however, remains largely untapped; Africa receives just 2% of global renewable energy investment. As the UNCTAD Secretary-General Rebeca Grynspan warns, too many countries are forced to “default on their development to avoid defaulting on their debt.”
The cost of servicing unsustainable debts, layered with new loan-based climate and development finance, leaves governments with little fiscal space to invest in clean energy, health or education. In 2022 alone, African countries spent more than $100 billion on debt servicing, over twice what they spent on health or education. Add to this the $90 billion lost annually to illicit financial flows, and the reality is stark: more money leaves the continent through financial leakages (also including unfair trade and extractive investment) than comes in through productive, equitable and development-oriented finance.
These are not isolated problems. They reflect a financial system that has been built to serve global markets rather than people. Between 2020 and 2025, four African countries defaulted on their external debts, that is, they failed to make scheduled repayments to creditors like the International Monetary Fund or bondholders, triggering fiscal crises and, in several cases, IMF interventions tied to austerity measures. Pope Francis’ Jubilee Report (2025) and hundreds of civil society groups argue that these defaults reflect the deeper crisis of unsustainable debt. Meanwhile, 24 more African countries are now in or near debt distress. None have successfully restructured their debts under the G20 Common Framework, a mechanism launched in 2020 to facilitate debt relief among public and private creditors. The Framework has been widely criticised for being slow, opaque and ineffective. According to Eurodad, without urgent systemic reforms, up to 47 Global South countries, home to over 1.1 billion people, face insolvency risks within five years if they attempt to meet climate and development goals.
How debt undermines the just energy transition
Debt has become both a driver and a symptom of climate injustice. Countries that did the least to cause the climate crisis now pay the highest price, twice over. First, they suffer the impacts. Second, they must borrow to rebuild.
This is happening just as concessional finance disappears. The US has withdrawn from the African Development Fund’s concessional window (worth $550m), yet maintains influence over private-sector lending. It has also opted out of the UN Financing for Development Conference (FfD4), a historic opportunity to confront the injustice of our financial system. Meanwhile, European governments, though now celebrating themselves as defenders of multilateralism, played a key role in weakening the outcome of FfD4, slashing aid budgets, redirecting funds toward militarisation, and systematically blocking proposals for a UN-led sovereign debt workout mechanism. With rising insecurity and geopolitical tensions, these actions send a troubling signal: at a moment when global cooperation is urgently needed, many Global North countries are stepping back from efforts to fix the very system that is preventing climate justice and clean energy for much of the Global South.
A role for the AfDB?
The African Development Bank (AfDB), under incoming president Sidi Ould Tah , has made progressive commitments of $10 billion to climate-resilient infrastructure and $4 billion to clean cooking. Between 2022 and 2024, one in five (20%) of its energy dollars were grants, far exceeding The World Bank ‘s 10% and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) ‘s 3.8%. The AfDB has also backed systemic reform: for example, calling for Special Drawing Rights (SDR) redistribution, launching an African Financial Stability Mechanism that could save up to $20 billion in debt servicing, and consistently advocating for fairer lending terms.

Yet, even progressive leadership struggles within a broken system. Recourse’s recent research shows that AfDB energy finance dropped 67% in 2024, from $992.7 million to just $329.6 million. Of this, a staggering 73% went to large-scale infrastructure like mega hydro dams and export-focused transmission lines, ‘false solutions’ that bypass the energy-poor and displace communities. Meanwhile, support for locally-appropriate, decentralised renewable energy systems such as mini-grids, solar appliances, and clean cookstoves plummeted by over 90%, from $694.5 million to just $61 million, with only five of 13 projects directly addressing energy access in 2024.
Africa received just 2.8% of global climate finance in 2021–22, and what is labelled as “climate finance” is often little more than a Trojan horse: resource-backed loans, debt-for-nature swaps, and blended finance instruments that shift risk to the public while offering little real benefit to local communities. These mechanisms, promoted as “innovative” or “green”, often entrench financial dependency and fail to deliver meaningful change for energy-poor or climate-vulnerable groups.
Meanwhile, initiatives that could build green industry and renewable capacity across Africa are falling short in both scale and speed. Flagship projects, such as the EU’s Global Gateway, have failed to drive green industrialisation in Africa, and carbon markets continue to delay real emissions reductions, subsidise fossil fuel interests, and entrench elite control over land and resources.
Mission 300: Ambition or another missed opportunity?
In this constrained context, the AfDB and World Bank launched Mission 300, an ambitious plan to connect 300 million Africans to electricity by 2030. Pragmatic goals like electrification are crucial, but the story beneath the surface of Mission 300 raises concern. Far from serving households, many projects under the initiative appear more aligned with export markets and large-scale energy users, echoing decades of infrastructure that bypasses those most in need.
Mission 300 can still be transformative, but only if it centres people, not profits. Energy access must begin with those who need it most: women and youth, especially in rural communities. Across Africa, many women cook over open fires, walk hours to gather fuel, and care for families in homes without light or clean air. This is not just an inconvenience, it is structural violence and policy failure.
Yet most energy finance still flows to centralised grids, mega-projects, and sometimes fossil gas (misleadingly called a “transition fuel”). These do little to address energy poverty. Locally appropriate decentralised renewable energy solutions, solar-powered appliances, clean cookstoves, and mini-grids can deliver faster, cheaper, and more equitable impact. Mission 300 must invest in such solutions, without adding to existing debt problems. It should support national policy design, for example, by ensuring that energy policy is responsive to women’s needs, making use of gender-disaggregated data and community consultation.
The Jubilee: A year for action
In a year already marked as a Jubilee moment, African leaders have demanded reform: including a sovereign debt workout mechanism and a UN Tax Convention to end illicit financial flows. Yet as AFRODAD has documented, these demands were blocked at the FfD4 negotiations by wealthy nations—notably the EU and UK—even as climate impacts grow and fiscal space shrinks.
This is not just about finance. It is about reclaiming sovereignty. The incoming AfDB president and all the multilateral development banks face a choice: continue financing extractive, large-scale projects that serve foreign interests, or invest in decentralised, gender-responsive, pro-people solutions that shift power and ownership.
Africa has the resources. What it needs is fiscal space, public-led finance, and global rules that prioritise people and planet over profit. The Jubilee call is clear: cancel the debt, redistribute the wealth, and fund the just transition.
Source: Recourse through LinkedIn Account Recourse.
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