EN 
PT_BR The Mato Grosso Soybean and Corn Producers Association (Aprosoja MT) sent a letter accompanied by a Technical Note to the Parliamentary Agricultural Front (FPA), warning of the legal, institutional, and economic risks arising from the automatic use of PRODES/INPE data as a criterion to prevent the granting of rural credit.
The document, sent to the president of the FPA, Pedro Lupion, demonstrates that the recent change made to the Rural Credit Manual, especially after Resolution No. 5,268 of the National Monetary Council, introduces a logic that exceeds legal limits and compromises legal security in the countryside, with an estimated impact on more than 18 million hectares, without observing the constitutional guarantees of rural producers.
The entity emphasizes that PRODES is an environmental monitoring tool with recognized technical relevance, but that it lacks a sanctioning nature, nor an administrative process structure that guarantees the right to a fair hearing, full defense, and appeals. Even so, its data is being used as an automatic trigger for credit restriction, which, in practice, is equivalent to applying a sanction without due process of law.
Another critical point raised by Aprosoja MT is the way the regulation treats identified deforestation. By not restricting the effects to the specific area where the damage may have occurred, the rule allows for the disqualification of the entire rural credit operation, generating severe financial impacts on the producer, such as loss of subsidies, abrupt increase in interest rates, and early maturity of contracts.
“We are facing a dangerous reversal. A technical instrument, created for macro-territorial analysis, is now producing direct effects on the producer's life, without any guarantee of defense. This is not environmental policy, this is legal uncertainty disguised as regulation,” said the vice-president of Aprosoja MT, Luiz Pedro Bier.
Furthermore, Aprosoja MT argues that the measure represents an overreach of the regulatory power of the National Monetary Council, as it directly interferes in Brazilian agricultural policy, a matter that, by constitutional mandate, must be developed with the effective participation of the productive sector.
“Agricultural policy cannot be redesigned by resolution. Rural credit is a constitutional instrument for food production and regional development. Any structural change in this system requires serious institutional debate within the appropriate forums,” reinforces the entity's administrative director, Diego Bertuol.
Given this scenario, the organization requested firm action from the FPA (Brazilian Parliamentary Front for Agriculture) with the CMN (National Monetary Council) and that the front evaluate appropriate legislative measures to correct the identified distortions.
Aprosoja MT also reported that it maintains a specialized technical support channel to advise rural producers who may face undue restrictions on credit due to PRODES findings.
“Protecting the environment is everyone’s duty, but in an ecologically balanced way, as determined by the Constitution. This does not authorize the constitutional guarantees of producers to be ignored due to ideological bias or by sub-legal expedients that, in practice, seek to reduce the demand for credit to mask the chaotic fiscal scenario that the country faces,” concludes Luiz Pedro Bier.
