Contextualizing certification and auditing: Soy certification and access of local communities to land and water in Brazil

Publikation: Beiträge in ZeitschriftenZeitschriftenaufsätzeForschungbegutachtet

Authors

The massive expansion of soy production in Brazil has contributed to a loss of access for local communities
to land and water, particularly in highly dynamic frontier regions in the Cerrado. Soy certification
standards like the Roundtable on Responsible Soy (RTRS) contain principles that are supposed to prevent
such problems. In this paper, we examine the extent to which certification and auditing have served to
protect local communities’ access to land and water in western Bahía state in the Cerrado’s Matopiba
region. We draw on findings from field research in Brazil and western Bahía, 72 semi-structured interviews
with corporate, state and civil society actors, and a systematic analysis of audit reports from
RTRS-certified farms in Bahía.
We find that auditing practices are not effective in protecting the rights and access of local communities
to land and water due to three inter-related sets of factors: 1) the business-dominated nature of the
drafting and content of the RTRS standard, 2) the structural limitations and everyday practices of auditing,
and 3) domestic and local contextual factors in Brazil and western Bahía.
This study aims to contribute to a re-thinking and re-assessment of certification and auditing practices
and suggests that new approaches are required to govern global commodity chains in a more environmentally
just way. We advocate for a locally embedded and community-sensitive perspective in research
on certification and auditing, to complement previous research in the fields of critical political economy
and sustainability governance.
OriginalspracheEnglisch
Aufsatznummer105281
ZeitschriftWorld Development
Jahrgang140
Anzahl der Seiten12
ISSN0305-750X
DOIs
PublikationsstatusErschienen - 01.04.2021

Zugehörige Projekte

  • Governance nachhaltiger Entwicklung in globalen Systemen inter-regionaler Fernwirkungen

    Projekt: Forschung

DOI

Zuletzt angesehen

Publikationen

  1. Explaining Investment Dynamics: Empirical Evidence from German New Ventures
  2. Differentiating forest types using TerraSAR–X spotlight images based on inferential statistics and multivariate analysis
  3. Action rate models for predicting actions in soccer
  4. Always on Call: Is There an Age Advantage in Dealing with Availability and Response Expectations?
  5. Modern Baselines for SPARQL Semantic Parsing
  6. Mining product configurator data
  7. Experimentally validated multi-step simulation strategy to predict the fatigue crack propagation rate in residual stress fields after laser shock peening
  8. Modeling Converging Material Flows In The Supply Chain
  9. Migration-Based Multilingualism in the English as a Foreign Language Classroom
  10. Dynamic performance
  11. Proof of concept
  12. Anisotropy and mechanical properties of dissimilar Al additive manufactured structures generated by multi-layer friction surfacing
  13. Object-Oriented Construction Handbook
  14. Do children with deficits in basic cognitive functions profit from mixed age primary schools?
  15. Mechanical properties and microstructures of nano SiC reinforced ZE10 composites prepared with ultrasonic vibration
  16. Theory-based course design for professional master's degree program in business engineering
  17. Time Use Research and Time Use Data
  18. Multi-view hidden markov perceptrons
  19. The Framework for Inclusive Science Education
  20. Material utilization of organic residues
  21. Covert and overt automatic imitation are correlated
  22. Organizing Events for Configuring and Maintaining Creative Fields