Potassium deposits are outside indigenous lands, says analysis of official data

President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) defends the liberation of mining on indigenous lands as a solution to the fertilizer crisis, caused by the war in Ukraine, but there is no record of potassium deposits in demarcated and approved indigenous lands.

Based on data from the Geological Survey of Brazil – CPRM and the ANM (National Mining Agency), a group of researchers from UFMG (Federal University of Minas Gerais) has been analyzing, since 2019, the national conditions for the production of mineral fertilizers.

When crossing the digitized maps of the deposits compiled by the federal government (from the research reports and the annual mining reports) with the homologated indigenous lands, the UFMG analysis concluded that there is no overlapping of lands.

There are, however, 11% of the deposits in the Legal Amazon that overlap with indigenous territories that are still in the demarcation process – that is, that have not yet been recognized as indigenous lands protected by law. They do not, therefore, fall within the scope of bill 191/2020, currently being processed in the Chamber of Deputies, which provides for the release of mining on indigenous lands.

“Public policy needs to be based on data. If you make a decision by manipulating the political environment with an objective, you will not be able to solve the fertilizer problem, for sure, and you will still create many problems for agribusiness, which is already an image that has been badly damaged internationally”, evaluates the researcher Raoni Rajão, who coordinates the Laboratory of Environmental Services Management at UFMG.

In addition to the reserves already identified (minable, measured or inferred), the CPRM, a federal government agency, is also studying a probable reserve of potassium in an area of ​​13.7 million hectares in the Amazon basin. Of the entire probable area, potential deposits may overlap with up to 11% of approved indigenous lands. Of the remaining 89%, 52% are in open areas and 37% in regions covered by active mining processes.

Among the confirmed deposits in the Amazon basin, only one overlaps with an indigenous land, not yet homologated. The Jauary territory, which has already been delimited and is still awaiting completion of the demarcation, coincides with 27% of the area of ​​the Autazes deposit, of 27 thousand hectares. In the same region, the study points to two other deposits without any overlap with indigenous areas: Fazendinha (22 thousand hectares) and Arari (31 thousand hectares).

“There are already prospectable areas identified without overlapping indigenous territories, so indigenous land is not a barrier to the exploration of potassium in the Amazon”, says one of the authors of the analysis and a researcher at the Laboratory of Management of Environmental Services (Lagesa) at UFMG, Bruno Manzolli. “The regularization of mining on indigenous lands will not change the production capacity of potassium fertilizers”, he points out.

Mining requests on indigenous lands are also few. A survey carried out by the NGO Instituto Socioambiental (ISA) based on requests for mine exploration made to the National Mining Agency shows that only 1.6% of the requests for potassium are located on indigenous lands. In the case of phosphate, they represent 0.4%.

Across the country, there are 408 requests for exploration of potash and 3,928 of phosphates, totaling 10.24 million hectares.

“Mining on indigenous lands does not solve the problem of fertilizers,” says the Brazil Climate, Forests and Agriculture Coalition, which brings together more than 300 agribusiness and environmental organizations, in a statement.

The movement asks “that Congress turn its attention to the various obstacles encountered in the country for the production of fertilizers, such as legal uncertainty, the tax system and other regulatory problems, which make imported products more competitive than national ones” .

On a national scale, the relevance of potash deposits in non-demarcated indigenous territories is even smaller: they are equivalent to only 3% of potash reserves, according to the UFMG analysis.

While the state of Amazonas has 254.3 million tons of potash reserves, most of the national potash reserves are outside the Legal Amazon, in the states of Minas Gerais (837.5 million tons), São Paulo (18, 6 million tons) and Sergipe (38.7 million tons), according to 2019 data from the ANM.

Despite national reserves being sufficient to supply the national market of potassium fertilizers until the end of the century, according to UFMG estimates, the country imports at least 94% of the potassium used in fertilizers, according to data from the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock based on the year. of 2018.

Dependence on other mineral fertilizers is also high: the country imports 55% of phosphorus and 76% of nitrogen, according to the ministry.

Kept at low prices since 2009, potassium fertilizers have a market concentrated by suppliers from Russia, Belarus and Canada. In 2018, the three countries sold, respectively, 26%, 18% and 32% of the product to Brazil. Another 11% came from Israel, for a total of 10.5 million tonnes of imported potash.

The obstacles to national production of fertilizers are centered on economic policy, according to a study published by the National Secretariat for Strategic Affairs.

“The problems faced by the Brazilian fertilizer market are the concentration of the sector in the hands of a few companies, the lack of investment in new technologies, great waste, logistical deficiencies and the indexation of the price to the exchange rate variation of the US dollar”, summarizes one Mining Observatory analysis.

The import of fertilizers and their consequent indexation to the exchange rate variation of the US dollar “extremely hinders any program to encourage rural production of foodstuffs that are not commodities for export, with prices also indexed to the US dollar”, highlights the study by the federal government.

Without citing any barrier linked to indigenous lands, the study by the Secretariat for Strategic Affairs makes seven recommendations to make the national production of fertilizers viable: deepening knowledge about the concentration of economic power in a few suppliers; invest in research and development; to evaluate developments of a new gas law; study ways to attract investment; reduce the tax asymmetry between imported and national production; deepen studies on environmental issues and, finally, prioritize the preparation of the National Fertilizer Plan.

Requested by the Ministry of Agriculture in 2020, an inter-ministerial working group was created by decree last January to develop the National Fertilizer Plan.

“It’s a matter of national security, because the plan will bring the security of having a fundamental input in times of crisis, mainly”, says in a note the researcher José Carlos Polidoro, from Embrapa Solos, who represents the body in the interministerial working group .

Polidoro also bets on the production of organic and organomineral fertilizers to meet the demand. “Almost 20% of the demand for imported fertilizers could be supplied with fertilizers based on national raw materials, residues from the agro chain”, he points out.

The only environmental obstacle cited by the document from the Strategic Affairs Department is the difficulty in obtaining an environmental license. “Mining activity significantly affects biomes, causing soil erosion, and the use of fertilizers can produce residues in the soil, contaminating rivers, water tables and the Atlantic Ocean”, says the document.

The study recommends the improvement of bureaucratic procedures in the environmental sphere, but makes the caveat: “it is not about extinguishing safeguards and protections for the environment, but about improvement, so that development and preservation can coexist.”

Environmental licensing was also the subject of requests from the sector to the federal government, given the crisis caused by the war in Ukraine.

In a note published last week, the Brazilian Mining Institute (Ibram) asked the federal government to create a working group to resolve obstacles to the environmental licensing of a potash exploration project in Amazonas, by the company Potássio do Brasil.

Licensing had been suspended for lack of consultation with the Mura indigenous people, neighboring the deposits in the municipality of Autazes (AM). However, after taking the case to court in 2016, the Federal Public Ministry established an agreement with the company to carry out the consultation, part of the environmental licensing rite. According to Potássio do Brasil, consultations had been suspended because of the pandemic, but have since resumed.

The federal government plans to launch a National Fertilizer Plan on Friday (11), since Brazil imports around 85% of the fertilizers it uses, reaching 96% in the case of potash.

The Minister of Agriculture, Tereza Cristina, said this month that the program will seek to minimize bottlenecks in legislation, tax problems and especially those related to environmental issues.

According to the minister, the government’s plan will be important to speed up the approval of environmental licenses, as in some cases “it takes five to ten years, and investors end up giving up on exploring this potential”.

with Reuters