Soybeans pave the way for the railway, changing lifestyles and communities.

Sinop in Mato Grosso to Itaituba in Pará.

In the men's house, a covered space with good ventilation through the open sides, right in the centre of the village, the Kayapó Mebengôkres gather for a meal break.

It is mid-afternoon and hot in May, but the climate is pleasant as it still rains a lot in the final stretch of the Amazon wet season.

The food is berarubu, highly valued in the Menkragnoti Indigenous Territory, the largest of the five territories occupied by the Kayapós in southern Pará and northern Mato Grosso. It is prepared in banana leaves and made with cassava dough and wild boar meat – the animal that, due to the quality of its meat, is the most hunted in the preserved forest within the boundaries of the traditional territories.

A thermos flask of water, taken from the Curuaés River, which borders the village, accompanies the berarubu.

The soybeans gradually encircling the villages of the Menkragnoti land, and neighbouring territories, directly impact the daily lives of the Kayapó, such as sharing berarubu in the middle of the afternoon.

The Indigenous people say that the meat from hunting, the fish, and the river water are contaminated by pesticides sprayed on soybean plantations that are getting closer to the boundaries of their territories. They already avoid hunting in these border areas.

Kayapó leaders expect this scenario to worsen in the coming years because a colossal infrastructure project is on the horizon. “Ferrogrão”, defended and carried forward by both right-wing and left-wing governments, is geared toward the explosion of soy and corn production in the region.

‘Just hearing the name Ferrogrão, I already understand that things will get worse,’ says Chief Tkak Djmati, from the village of Mopkrore, shortly before sharing the berarubu with his relatives in the men's house. The statements were translated by a Kayapó who speaks Portuguese.

‘Soybean plantations will increase significantly. When it rains, the pesticides run into the river, and here we don't have artesian wells. There's nowhere to run, and all the children get sick,’ says Djmati.

Ferrogrão is a 933 km railway project stretching from Sinop, whose 300 km radius accounts for 40% of all soybean production in Mato Grosso, the largest grain producer in the country - to Itaituba, more specifically to the port of Miritituba, where there is a large complex of silos, warehouses, and mini-ports dominated by soybean and corn trades.

The railway follows the route of the BR-163, a highway that can no longer cope with the model of unbridled soybean expansion in this part of the Brazilian Amazon. Travelling on the road has become a nightmare, with daily queues of trucks in front of silos, at inspection posts, at the entrance to cities, in petrol station forecourts, and in the vicinity of the port.

According to representatives of large soybean producers, between 2,000 and 3,000 trucks travel on the BR-163 every day during the harvest season. Mato Grosso produced over 100 million tonnes of soybeans and corn in the last harvest. The Office of the Presidency of the Republic, which wants Ferrogrão to become a reality, says this traffic amounts to 4,000 trucks daily.

The Lula administration took up the projects of the major soybean operators - such as Cargill, Bunge, and Amaggi - and included studies and projects for the railway in the New PAC (Growth Acceleration Programme). According to the Office of the Presidency, the auction for the Ferrogrão concession is expected to take place in 2026, the last year of Lula's current term.

A working group was set up at the Ministry of Transport. On the 1st of this month, the ministry rejected a request for reimbursement of R$270 million submitted by the company responsible for the railway's technical studies. A new proposal must be made, as the request proved to be "incompatible" without adequate technical justification.

Other setbacks continue, but the Planalto Palace wants the concession finalised in 2026. Beyond the bureaucracy in Brasília, the pressure is already being felt by those in the path of Ferrogrão.

The Kayapó territories are located 30 to 48 km from the railway route. The Munduruku, who occupy small green areas in Itaituba, are closer, some less than 6 km away.

Fishing communities at the mouth of Jamanxim National Park – divided by the BR-163 highway and the railway line – will have to leave the area. The same will happen to small farmers bordering two future Ferrogrão branches along the arrival area.

They all say they have never been consulted about the project. And they are all directly impacted by the growing encroachment of soybeans.

Folha travelled the entire length of the railway line planned for concession, from Sinop to Itaituba, and visited traditional communities along the route – some a few metres away, others kilometres away.

In this part of Brazil, everything spin around soybeans (and corn). For some time now, this has been the reality for communities living in pockets of preserved forest amid monocultures - preservation that, in fact, is due to these traditional communities, now even more impacted by the expansion of soybean and corn cultivation.

“In February and March, the BR-163 highway is hell,” says Ilson José Redivo, president of the Sinop Rural Union and vice president of the northern region of Aprosoja (Brazilian Association of Soybean Producers). “It’s one double trailer truck after another. At the other end, in Miritituba, each trade operates its own private port terminal,” he says.

Ferrogrão could cut freight costs in half, according to Redivo. ‘The railway project will pay for itself in two to three years.’

The BR-163 is, in fact, hell. The highway is chaotic, with thousands of trucks every day.

The truck drivers' routine consists of long waits in various queues that form until they reach the port in Miritituba. From there, the cargo is transported by water to Santarém (Pará) and the Port of Vila do Conde, in Barcarena (Pará), from where it continues its journey, mainly outside the country.

The Menkragnoti land is halfway along the road, on the right-hand side, heading towards Itaituba. It is a preserved forest area covering 4.9 million hectares. The nearest urban district is Castelo dos Sonhos, crossed by the BR-163 highway.

Between Castelo dos Sonhos and the first village in the Indigenous territory, Pykatoti, there are 61 km of dirt roads. This village was created to serve as a surveillance post, given the construction of roads that ensured minimal connection to outside of the indigenous land. Now, what is approaching are the soybean and corn farms.

‘It used to be pasture. Last year, it all turned into soybeans. Now it's all corn,’ says Abiri Kayapó, chief of the Pykatoti village. His words are translated by a Kayapó Indigenous person who is a Kabu Institute member, representing villages in the region. ‘Because of these plantations, our water has become unfit for use.’

The Kayapós say that the advance of the farms represents a loss of space for the Indigenous people, in addition to the “poison” that spreads to the territory.

“We are eating contaminated fish. Wild boar and tapir are probably also contaminated,” says Abiri. “With the railway, there will be more invasion, more people planting soybeans, more outsiders.”

The sentiment is the same in villages in the Baú territory, adjacent to Menkragnoti, on the same side of the highway. The Kayapó people in these territories have officially approved consultation protocols and want to be heard in the Ferrogrão project. More specifically, they want to express their opposition to the project to the official federal government authorities.

So much soy and corn is being transported on the BR-163 highway that accidents involving these loads—a truck overturns every week - have become job opportunities.

Right at the entrance to Jamanxim National Park, a truck carrying 57 tonnes of soybeans overturned, without seriously injuring the driver. Hours later, Carlos Henrique Silva, 43, Delson Andrew, 21, and Daniel Oliveira, 19, were already on top of the cargo scattered on the side of the highway, collecting the soybeans and placing the grains in large sacks.

They repeat the manual labour hundreds or thousands of times, until they filled 60 bags over two or three days. For the work, paid for by an insurance company, each receives a daily wage of 150 reais. ‘We don't wish anyone harm. But our work depends on it,’ says Carlos Henrique.

At the other end of the park, in the Trairão region (Pará), the insane truck traffic was a tragedy for the family of Elda Pinto dos Santos, 75, the oldest resident of Vila do Aruri, a fishing community – and a hub for illegal mining in the region – that runs alongside the BR-163 highway.

Elda's 21-year-old grandson was killed by a truck in 2024, 2 km from the pensioner's home. He was her closest grandson, according to the residents of Aruri. ‘Of the living, I was the first to arrive. That was 45 years ago. And I don't want to leave,’ says Elda.

The village of Aruri, which bears the same name as the river where workers earn their income from artisanal fishing, is one of the few communities mentioned in studies and environmental impact reports as being directly impacted by Ferrogrão, to the extent that the destruction of homes and displacement of families is mandatory. According to these documents, the village is 345 m from the railway line.

The community has 42 families. So far, no one from the government or contracted companies has come to consult residents about the project or to inform them about its current stage.

What has happened so far is harassment by representatives of road transport companies who have asked residents to protest against the railway.

Even with the heavy and noisy flow of trucks, José dos Santos Silva, known as Zuza, 67, says that ‘there is no better place than here.’ "If I have nothing to eat, I go to the river and catch fish. I wouldn't know where to go if I had to leave," says the Maranhão native, who previously mined gold and became a fisherman and currently chairing the Vila do Aruri community association.

The final stretch of Ferrogrão is located in a place where soybeans already dictate the pace of everything: barges dominate the landscape of the Tapajós River, dozens of terminals have been built to serve the large companies that depend on commodities, and other terminals are under construction.

This dominance impacts the lives of Munduruku Indigenous villages in an almost invisible way – not least because the Indigenous people are not heard in the course of the Ferrogrão project.

The Munduruku people of the Itaituba region are Indigenous people who have undergone historic displacement processes in recent decades, being pushed into tiny territories in the urban part of Itaituba. Such are the territories of Praia do Mangue and Praia do Índio, where 380 Munduruku live. The elders used to live on the other side of the river, where today there are silos and mini-ports for soybeans.

These Indigenous lands are the closest to the Ferrogrão route, with distances ranging from 5.8 km to 8.5 km.

The flow of soybeans has completely disrupted the logic of artisanal fishing. Indigenous people cannot get close to the silos and terminals, and non-Indigenous people are increasingly seeking out their traditional fishing areas.

The logic of monoculture expansion has also trampled on Munduruku spirituality. The construction of a soybean terminal had to be halted because of the discovery of a traditional cemetery on the site, which proved to be a sacred place for the Munduruku. There are several others like this one near the city, according to archaeological findings in the region.

“Several ports are being built without any consultation. And the Munduruku people are distraught, because there are several sacred sites there,” says shaman Fabiano Karu Pen, 81, who participated in the spiritual identification of the discovered cemetery.

“It belongs to the ancient people. No one can destroy it in any way; it is a large cemetery. There is contact with these spirits. If they touch it, we will suffer the consequences,” says the shaman.

When passing in front of the area that was once his village, on the banks of the Tapajós River, Chief Tiago Ikõbaca Kpu, 66, explains that the bacaúba trees present are a sign of the abundance of black earth, a type of highly fertile soil, modified by the ancestral presence of Indigenous communities. Now there are giant silos, warehouses, and vehicles serving the soybean industry.

A lake was filled in, and a terminal was quickly built. “That’s where we used to fish. Now we can’t anymore,” says the chief of one of the Munduruku urban communities, located on the other side of the river.

Forty kilometres from the city, in an area of preserved forest, the ten Munduruku families of the Sawré Ba'pim Indigenous Land find themselves surrounded by the advance of a soybean farm – it is the first time they have grown the grain, according to Bonifácio Saw Munduruku, 59, leader of the territory. The plantations are right next to the Amazon National Park.

“It has been shrinking little by little. The cattle ranchers have been taking pieces of it. And this year, for the first time, they planted soybeans,” says Bonifácio, who has been fighting for 20 years for the demarcation of the territory. “There is a cloud of poison over the community. It contaminates the stream, damages our buriti and açaí plantations, and even the fish are dying.”

For the Lula administration, Ferrogrão will enable cargo traceability and prevent soy production from illegal deforestation of Indigenous lands. Its impacts will be limited to terminal areas loading and disembarking.

The implementation of the railway should reduce pressure on neighbouring communities, promoting more sustainable and efficient transport for the country," says the Civil House of the Presidency.

This article was published in Folha de Sao Paulo on 20 July 2025.