Brasília, 2 – The Canadian company that was criticized by President Jair Bolsonaro this Wednesday, 2, in reference to plans to explore for potash in Brazil, concentrates no less than 149 active requests for mineral exploration in several municipalities in Pará. and the Amazon. Data from the National Mining Agency (ANM) indicate that Potássio do Brasil, controlled by the Canadian investment bank Forbes & Manhattan, is awaiting the conclusion of the environmental process of dozens of projects to effectively start exploration in the country.
In the 2016 video posted by Bolsonaro on social media when he was a federal deputy, the president criticized that mining rights in the region “are in the hands of a Canadian company” and said that these explorations would have been “arranged via Petrobras, God knows how” . Bolsonaro does not give details about his statements. “In other words, we cannot exploit our own potassium”, he concludes.
In the recording, Bolsonaro criticizes the dependence on agribusiness input that is imported from Russia and that Brazil needs to seek its local production, but that the performance of Canadians is one of the “problems” to be solved.
The fact is that, with Bolsonaro already in the presidency, the company not only proceeded with older processes, but also presented eight new exploration requests since January 2019, targeting exploration areas in municipalities such as Autazes, Itacoatiara and São Sebastião do Uatumã. , in the Amazon.
Canadian investment bank Forbes & Manhattan is also behind the Belo Sun mining project, which intends to implement an industrial gold exploration project in Pará, in the Belo Monte hydroelectric region. In recent years, as revealed by the Estadãothe company irregularly acquired a series of land for agrarian reform in the region, to make room for its exploitation.
In February, a report by Public Agency revealed that, despite Bolsonaro’s past criticism of Canadian operations in the region, his government has been directly involved in the mining processes with Forbes & Manhattan bank to accelerate the release of projects. The support has included members linked to the Armed Forces in the Executive and even reached the vice president of the Republic and retired army general Hamilton Mourão, who held meetings in Brasília to discuss the matter.
The report questioned Potássio do Brasil about the situation of its projects in the country, but there was no position until the publication of this article. Today, the projects are still waiting for the conclusion of the environmental licensing process to be carried out. Despite all the involvement of the federal government with the subject, environmental authorizations do not go through Ibama, but through licenses to be issued by a state agency.
There is great controversy, however, in regions that may have an indirect impact on indigenous lands. The company conducts public consultations at this time as part of the licensing process.
Potássio do Brasil has its base in Autazes, 120 kilometers from Manaus, where the mineral deposit identified by the company is located. In June of last year, the company informed that it “has taken a firm and very important step” in the environmental licensing process for another enterprise, the “Itapiranga Potassium Project”.
An application to obtain a preliminary license for the project was filed with the Institute for Environmental Protection of Amazonas (Ipaam) for the production of potassium fertilizers in the municipality 226 km from Manaus. The forecast is to produce around 2 million tons of potash fertilizers per year.
By the year 2020, the company claims that more than US$ 190 million has been invested in the discovery and development of its projects in Brazil and another US$ 2 billion will be invested by the end of the construction of its operations.
Brazil purchases approximately 85% of the volume of fertilizers applied annually to crops abroad. Russia is one of the main exporters of the input to Brazil and, in January, it accounted for 30.1% of the fertilizers that entered the national territory, according to information from the Ministry of Economy. During the 12 months of last year, the Russians were responsible for 23.3% of all fertilizer that entered Brazil.
Brazil’s trade relations with Russia are mostly focused on the purchase of fertilizers. Of the US$ 5.7 billion in Brazilian imports from Russia in 2021, US$ 3.5 billion – or 62% of the total – are related to the purchase of input used in agribusiness. This result from last year was 97% higher than that recorded in 2020, when Brazil spent US$ 1.75 billion on imports of these products.
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