Latin America

Case study

Farmer First Clusters

(FFC)

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Participating organizations

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Context

The Brazilian Cerrado is both a globally significant biome – recognized as the world’s most biodiverse savanna – and a major soy-producing region. It faces intense pressure from agricultural expansion, with deforestation rates that exceed those of the Amazon, in 2023-2025. Although Brazil’s Forest Code requires the preservation of 20% to 35% of the area of rural properties in the Cerrado as legal reserves, most deforestation occurs legally on the remaining portions of land not designated for conservation. Agricultural activities are the primary drivers of this deforestation. At the same time, the Cerrado contains an estimated 40 million hectares of degraded lands and cleared pastures that could be repurposed for agricultural production, reducing the need to clear native vegetation. Given the Cerrado’s ecological vulnerability and its critical role in global food systems, it represents a key opportunity for regenerative transformation.

At the same time, the Cerrado contains an estimated

hectares of degraded lands and cleared pastures that could be repurposed for agricultural production, reducing the need to clear native vegetation.

Key facts

Landscape:
Brazilian Cerrado (Western Mato Grosso, Southern Maranhão, Tocantins, Western Bahia)
Crops:
Soy
Organizations involved:
WBCSD, Soft Commodities Forum (SCF) member companies (Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), Bunge, Cargill, COFCO International, Louis Dreyfus Company (LDC)), Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM), Parque Vida Cerrado, Produzindo Certo, Solidaridad, Rede ILPF, Brazilian Association of Vegetable Oil Industries (ABIOVE), Consumer Goods Forum Forest Positive Coalition (CGF FPC), Tropical Forest Alliance.
Scope:
237 farms enrolled in phase one (2023–2025), with interventions across 1.5 million hectares of farmland and native vegetation
Total capital deployed:
Up to USD $7.2 million committed by SCF members for a 3-year pilot program. Of this, USD $4.3 million already deployed. Additionally, the CGF FPC has deployed over USD $5 million in co-funding in the same high-risk states.
Timeline:
Launched in 2023, first pilot phase conducted in 2023–2027, scaling through 2030, progress monitored and published via annual reports

Ambition of the project

The Farmer First Clusters (FFC) initiative, founded by five major agri-business companies part of WBCSD’s Soft Commodities Forum (SCF), aims to accelerate the adoption of deforestation- and conversion-free (DCF) soy production in Brazil’s Cerrado biome. Providing support to producers with technical assistance, financial incentives and regenerative practices, the FFC seeks to transform high deforestation-risk soy sourcing regions into sustainable production landscapes – aligned with the Agriculture Sector Roadmap to 1.5°C. The design of the landscape interventions from this initiative aims to be scalable and replicable, with a target of reaching over 2 million hectares of farmland and 400,000 hectares of native vegetation conserved by 2026.

The program has laid the groundwork for scaled impact by partnering with downstream companies in the soy value chain for co-investment. Through the Sustainable Landscapes Partnership (SLP) between the SCF (whose members are soy traders) and the CGF FPC (whose members are downstream offtakers), the implementation of new solutions, such as subsidized lending through the Responsible Commodities Facility, is enabled.

Over time, the FFC seeks to leverage its successes to mobilize greater engagement from soy value chain actors and to establish a robust long-term financial model capable of attracting both catalytic capital and commercial investment. This blended approach will enable the scaling of high-impact, sustainable land-use solutions resulting in the flow of DCF soy through supply chains.

The design of the landscape interventions from this initiative aims to be scalable and replicable, with a target of reaching over

hectares of farmland and

hectares of native vegetation conserved by 2026

The program at a glance

Through the FFC, soy companies fund local implementing partners to work with producers to advance sustainable farming outcomes in high deforestation-risk sourcing regions. The companies have identified priority landscapes and at-risk municipalities through assessments of the soy area over deforested and converted land after 31 December 2020, as well as key sourcing regions for SCF companies. These assessments have focused on Western Mato Grosso, Southern Maranhão, Tocantins and Western Bahia.

The FFC’s five solutions aim to provide the right mix of incentives, technical assistance and alternatives to agricultural expansion to support sustainable production while balancing the opportunity cost of producers to legally convert native vegetation for soy production:

1. IPAM, through its CONSERV program in Mato Grosso and Maranhão, provides direct payments to producers in exchange for commitments to conserve areas of surplus legal reserves, beyond the requirements of the Brazil Forest Code, as a form of payment for ecosystem services.

2. Parque Vida Cerrado helps producers in Bahia monitor biodiversity and restore native vegetation in degraded areas through its Conecta Cerrado project.

3. Produzindo Certo provides technical assistance in all FFC regions. It assesses each farm’s compliance with local regulations and supports farmers in producing more sustainably through carbon accounting and Roundtable on Responsible Soy (RTRS) certification.

4. Solidaridad supports producers in Tocantins with the implementation of integrated crop–livestock–forest systems in degraded pastureland through its Integra Campo project.

5. Rede ILPF (integração lavoura-pecuária-floresta or crop–livestock–forest integration) supports farmers in Mato Grosso in the implementation of integrated crop–livestock systems that increase productivity, reduce input costs, enhance soil and water health, and improve climate resilience. The project includes environmental, social and governance (ESG) monitoring, facilitates access to sustainable finance and provides training to technicians, producers and students.

In its first phase, 2023–2025, the FFC invested USD $2.4 million and engaged 237 farmers managing more than 1.5 million hectares of farmland.

Eligibility and compliance

The FFC engages producers through the commercial teams of the businesses and tailored outreach. Participating farms must comply with Brazil’s Forest Code and commit to sustainable land-use practices. Additionally, the farms must comply with anti-slavery work laws and not be blacklisted for working conditions.

Each of the four distinct intervention areas has additional eligibility and compliance criteria:

To receive IPAM’s financial compensation for the surplus of legal reserves, farmers must demonstrate the excess of legal reserves in their property verifiable through the Rural Environmental Registry system (CAR) and adhere to at least three years of DCF commitment over the area of excess legal reserves, with a quarterly DCF assessment of the whole property.

To access Parque Vida Cerrado’s restoration support, farmers must provide plans to recover degraded areas on their lands and commit to three years of DCF production.

To receive support from Rede ILPF, farmers must have existing integrated farming areas. Additionally, they must agree to a three-year DCF commitment for the CAR area.

Farmers working with Solidaridad are required to follow a three-year DCF commitment.

Finally, the support for Produzindo Certo’s technical assistance and socioenvironmental assessment requires farmers to agree to a one-year DCF commitment.

­Governance & stakeholder engagement

SCF, a WBCSD program, leads the governance structure of the FFC, with the collaboration of ABIOVE – Brazil’s main soy agribusiness trade association. All SCF members are also ABIOVE members. The trade association also serves as the financial intermediary, data broker and antitrust barrier between the SCF secretariat, the businesses and implementing partners. The role of ABIOVE is key to convening corporate stakeholders, ensuring data confidentiality and engaging effectively with partners on the ground.

This structure has expanded to involve collaboration with the CGF FPC, with support from the Tropical Forest Alliance, to implement landscape initiatives in high-risk areas of the Cerrado. This partnership has resulted in the development of a shared monitoring and evaluation framework and the building of partnerships with local actors, such as IPAM and the Produce, Conserve and Include Institute (PCI Institute) in Mato Grosso.

Participating businesses play a pivotal role by mobilizing their extensive networks of soy producers. Farmer engagement for sustainable and regenerative initiatives, especially in high-risk areas, is challenging. By leveraging the commercial networks of engaged companies and providing a strong, multi-layered set of incentives and solutions to producers, the FFC has demonstrated an effective model for engaging farmers on the ground.

“What we’ve noticed is that restoration moves very slowly here. Producers still have a lot of difficulty even talking about restoration, and at first, it took us a while to understand why. Often they have no idea of the biodiversity present on their farms and once we show them that they have jaguars, tapirs, maned wolves on their farms, they start engaging more with the project, becoming more interested in the restoration process.”

– Gabrielle da Rosa, Coordinator of Parque Vida Cerrado

Success factors

The Cerrado presents both a sustainability imperative and financial risk for SCF members, as supply chains linked to deforestation pose business resilience, reputational and regulatory challenges. Collective action has become an essential strategy in transforming the supply chain and landscapes in the Cerrado, aligning with the Agriculture Sector Roadmap to 1.5°C and the priorities of Brazil’s Ministry of Agriculture. Success factors such as early alignment on outcome indicators, robust monitoring, reporting and verification frameworks, and leveraging pre-existing relationships have contributed significantly to the initiative’s progress.

In addition to the previously mentioned risk of low producer engagement, the initiative faces other key challenges. These include accurately measuring carbon additionality and ensuring long-term adherence to DCF commitments. The shorter-term producer contracts and DCF pledges used in the initial pilot program and the technical complexity of carbon accounting may present barriers in achieving lasting impact.

Financing model

SCF members committed up to USD $7.2 million in the initial three-year pilot program to create a funding model and proof of concept for the five FFC solutions, supported by technical implementation and strategic co-funding partnerships. In parallel, the initiative is developing a financial strategy to scale incentives and activities for producers and ensure long-term reductions in the opportunity costs associated with DCF production. As part of this, the teams have evaluated potential revenue streams from FFC activities and financial mechanisms beyond upfront grants that could ensure a more commercially attractive and self-sustaining approach. Consultations have been underway with potential stakeholders in the long-term financial strategy and on partnerships with financial institutions that provide green finance products to producers and manage other financial vehicles supporting the regenerative transition of the Cerrado. While the refining of the long-term financial strategy is ongoing, the goal is to establish a scalable framework for its effective adaptation to other regions.

Key priorities in building out the long-term strategy are minimizing risks for producers and participating companies, directly linking financial incentives to measurable sustainability outcomes, and enabling revenue streams and catalytic capital that can attract more commercial investors.

Monitoring, reporting and verification

The FFC co-developed its outcome indicators through an iterative process, starting with what partners were already measuring. Engaging stakeholders early in the process and aligning outcome indicators has ensured that the measures are relevant to all parties, from financiers to farmers, while also laying a solid foundation for the demonstration of long-term impacts. Trust plays a critical role in this: involving trusted intermediaries to engage producers and providing them with straightforward tools to convey program benefits helps increase participation in the initiative.

WBCSD facilitated dialogues between SCF members and partners to refine and align indicators with both on-the-ground realities and international frameworks such as:

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Positive Impact Indicators Directory;

The Impact Indicator Guidelines from the Innovative Finance for the Amazon, Cerrado and Chaco (IFACC) initiative

This process has led to an expanded, more practical and harmonized set of indicators that partners can report against without undue burden. Furthermore, ongoing discussions have resulted in a harmonized metrics framework between the SCF and the CGF FPC under the sustainable landscapes partnership.

Ongoing discussions continue to refine the granularity of certain indicators, especially for carbon. As the FFC continues to engage with companies across the soy value chain, it recognizes the importance of carbon for participating companies to potentially claim as insetting benefits. Alternatively, while Brazil’s compliance carbon market is nascent and the global voluntary carbon market continues to mature, there is growing interest from FFC stakeholders in carbon credit finance as a potential part of the longer-term financing strategy.

The implementing partners on the ground, together with ABIOVE, monitor the progress of the FFC interventions.

Table 2: Objectives and progress monitored per impact area

Theme
Objective
Indicators
Progress to date
Climate
Avoid emissions, increase carbon stocks and carbon sequestration
Carbon stock maintained in protected forests
601,654 metric tons CO2*
Climate
Avoid emissions, increase carbon stocks and carbon sequestration
Avoided greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
2.2 million metric tons CO2-eq**
Biodiversity
Protect and restore native vegetation, monitor forests located on soy farms enrolled in the initiative
Area of protected
7,166 ha (under payment for SLP program)
Biodiversity
Protect and restore native vegetation, monitor forests located on soy farms enrolled in the initiative
Are of restored native vegetation
220 ha
Biodiversity
Protect and restore native vegetation, monitor forests located on soy farms enrolled in the initiative
Area of surplus legal reserve enrolled
46,792 ha
Biodiversity
Protect and restore native vegetation, monitor forests located on soy farms enrolled in the initiative
Area of potential avoided deforestation and conversion
284,739 ha (native vegetation area)
Water
Measure water quality on farms implementing integrated systems
Water quality (analysis)
Measured from 2025 onwards
Soil health
Measure soil health on farms implementing integrated systems
Soil quality analysis (fertility; BioAS analysis)
Measured from 2025 onwards
Socio-economic impact
Soy productivity***
Total productivity
1,589,123 metric tons
Socio-economic impact
Improve livelihoods
Producer’s level of satisfaction and perceptions of changes in quality of life
Measured from 2026 onwards

* CO2 stock maintained in native vegetation protected by program based on IPAM’s estimate of 12.86 metric tons of carbon/hectare (tC/ha) average carbon stock/hectare

** Potential avoided emissions based on IPAM’s estimate of 3.7 tCO2/tC emissions factor

*** Only Produzindo Certo has measured productivity

Endnotes

1 WBCSD (2025). Resilience for the Future: A Viable Pathway to Regenerative Landscapes in the Cerrado. Retrieved from: https://www.wbcsd.org/resources/resilience-for-the-future-a-viable-pathway-to-regenerative-landscapes-in-the-cerrado/.

2 International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) (2019). New climate-smart investment scheme to promote sustainable land and water use in Brazil’s Cerrado region. Retrieved from: https://iucn.org/news/business-and-biodiversity/201908/new-climate-smart-investment-scheme-promote-sustainable-land-and-water-use-brazils-cerrado-region.

3 TechnoServe (2025). Building the Case for Regenerative Coffee Production: Brazil Arabica. Retrieved from: https://www.technoserve.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/TechnoServe_Brazil-Arabica-Regenerative-Coffee-Investment-Case.pdf.

4 Critical Ecosystems Partnership Fund (2021). In Brazil, Climate Change Is Causing a Coffee Crisis. Retrieved from: https://www.cepf.net/stories/brazil-climate-change-causing-coffee-crisis#:~:text=10%20August%202021,the%20Federation%20of%20Coffee%20Growers.

5 Critical Ecosystems Partnership Fund (2021). In Brazil, Climate Change Is Causing a Coffee Crisis. Retrieved from: https://www.cepf.net/stories/brazil-climate-change-causing-coffee-crisis#:~:text=10%20August%202021,the%20Federation%20of%20Coffee%20Growers.

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