The São Pedro farm, located in Martinópolis (550 km from ), managed by , Secretary of Agriculture of the government (Republicanos-SP), and his family members was condemned for environmental liabilities, which are damages caused to the environment by human activities and which result in recovery responsibilities.
In a note, the São Paulo Department of Agriculture states that the property was purchased by the family before Piai assumed any position in public administration, already had environmental liabilities when it was acquired and is undergoing a “regular adjustment process”, in accordance with the requirements of the legislation.
The farm is in the name of Piai’s parents and uncles, who are defendants in the case. Piai and his brother, administrators of the area alongside their parents, are not mentioned.
On social media, Piai publishes posts celebrating harvests and new installations on the farm under his management. A company in his name was registered with the address of São Pedro.
With 1,300 hectares, the farm was passed on to Piai’s uncles and parents in 1995, inherited from his grandfather. It has cattle and soy and sugar cane plantations. After inquiries, the Public Ministry of São Paulo denounced São Pedro for not maintaining permanent preservation areas, in which there were animals grazing, and not having the minimum tree cover required by law to form a legal forest reserve. The economic exploitation of these areas is prohibited.
In 2017, the Court ordered the farm’s owners to isolate and reconstitute the permanent preservation and legal forest reserve areas, with the project required to be presented to environmental agencies.
APPs are protected by law, with the function of preserving water resources in areas with rivers. A legal forest reserve is an area with native vegetation cover that must be maintained on every rural property. In the case of rural fields in any region, the reserve must correspond to at least 20% of the land area.
In a schedule presented to the Secretariat of Agriculture itself in July 2025, the owners of the São Pedro farm committed to completing the implementation of the APP restoration area and legal reserve in October 2035.
In a note to the Panel, the Department of Agriculture states that it is absolutely incorrect to associate Piai’s management at the head of the department, which began two years ago, with the case. “Farm São Pedro already has the Rural Environmental Registry validated and has an area of preserved native vegetation greater than that existing at the time of acquisition”, he adds.
Carlos Alberto Destro, the family’s lawyer, told the reporter that he would only comment on the case. In a September statement, he stated in the process that the defendants have already registered the preservation areas and the environmental recovery plan and requested that the daily fines for non-compliance with the sentence be removed.
In the same month, the Court authorized the Public Prosecutor’s Office to send a letter to Cati de Presidente Prudente (an agency of the Department of Agriculture) to inform them whether the environmental recovery plan was approved and a term of commitment was signed by the owners of Fazenda São Pedro.
Piai is currently facing pressure from the São Paulo administration. In statements to the Public Ministry of São Paulo, former employees of the Department of Agriculture said that he, in the department, archived internal investigation processes and promoted assistants who prepared opinions used to suspend investigation into irregular payments in contracts of the Department of Agriculture at the end of 2022, under the Rodrigo Garcia administration (at the time of the PSDB).
HAS Sheet Piai denied having acted and said that the testimonies came from people who were fired for being “incompetent”.
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