Bunge strives to create growth that benefits the communities where we operate, while supporting environmentally responsible agricultural production.

Bunge’s soy-processing plant in Uruçuí, in the state of Piauí, Brazil, has brought employment and economic opportunity to one of the country’s poorest states. The facility employs some 200 people, and the economic activity it generates has helped stimulate the creation of approximately 70 new businesses and 2,000 jobs in a community of 17,000 people.

Bunge has invested in numerous municipal improvements in Uruçuí – building schools and homes, remodeling the hospital and improving area roads. Bunge also is an active community partner and administers programs focused on childhood and adult education, health care and the environment.

Piauí includes the Cerrado biome, a woodland-savanna ecosystem with tremendous biodiversity. Bunge is working with farmers that supply its Uruçuí plant to balance agricultural development and conservation needs.

In partnership with Conservation International and local NGO Oréades, Bunge helps growers comply with environmental laws, practice sustainable production and land management, and establish and maintain legal reserves. The partnership uses satellite mapping to help farmers set aside reserve areas in accordance with Brazilian forestry laws and to link these reserves with natural parklands to create contiguous environmental corridors that support the area’s diverse plant and animal species.

We also are working to improve the sustainability of our own operations by becoming self-sufficient in renewable energy in our plants throughout Brazil. We power our agribusiness facilities there using biomass, including certified wood, agricultural byproducts and eucalyptus grown in reforested areas, which studies have shown is the most efficient energy source available due to the lack of natural gas lines and the large distances required to transport fuel. Our goal is to use only renewable, plantation-raised eucalyptus to power our plants in Brazil by 2012. At Uruçuí, we aim to achieve self-sufficiency even earlier.

Bunge's partnership with Conservation International in the Cerrado

2008 Sustainability Report for Brazil