How Agribusiness Influence Environmental Legislation in Brazil and Chile

• In Event: The Politics of Natural Resources and Climate Management in Latin America

Abstract

State regulations over the use of land and water have become key issues for agribusiness’ profitability and the focus of their political action in the past two decades. However, the issue of how agrarian elites influence these new distributive issues in democracy is understudied. This paper compares Brazil and Chile to show how agribusiness have been equally capable of shaping legislation according to their interests in a country with a strong partisan right (Chile) and in another with weak right-wing parties (Brazil). I analyze the design and passage of two highly contested pieces of legislation, debated in each national congress for decades: the Chilean Water Code reform sanctioned in 2022 and the Brazilian New Forest Code sanctioned in 2012. Both reforms were highly consequential for the continuity of the agribusiness model, as they contained restrictions to the use of land and the resources in it, curtailing landowners’ property rights. In Chile, agrarian elites were able to first block and then crucially shape major changes to the Water Code through a two-pronged strategy that included public opinion campaigns and strong ties to the partisan right, Renovación Nacional (RN) in particular. Meanwhile, in Brazil, the agrarian caucus wrote and passed a New Forest Code compatible with agribusiness’ interests. This congressional caucus featured legislators from different parties, including, crucially, many in the center-left government’s legislative coalition. The paper is based on multiple sources of qualitative data, including 60 elite interviews, legislative records, producers’ associations publications, and newspaper articles.

Author

• María Belén Fernández Milmanda, Trinity College