LaCK OF TRaNSPaRENCY PROVIDES IMPUNITY FOR THE CaTTLE SECTOR

In terms of civil society’s ability to hold the industrial meat sector to account, lack of transparency is particularly problematic in two areas in Brazil: land tenure and cattle movement.

If companies do not know who is producing the commodities they use or trade, or where those producers operate, they cannot know whether the producers are operating responsibly or destroying forests or other ecosystems. If civil society has no oversight, there is no public accountability. The environmental stakes are too high for such ignorance.

Brazil does not have a universal national system to track individual cattle. A large proportion of cattle in Brazil move between ranches over the course of their lives, meaning that indirect supplies (cattle not originating on the ranch from which the slaughterhouse ultimately purchases them) are a significant feature of slaughterhouses’ supply chains.208 There are multiple stages in the standard four-year production cycle of Brazilian beef, from birth to slaughter, as a result of which cattle often spend time on two or more properties before arrival at the slaughterhouse.209 It is estimated that as many as 95% of ranches buy from other properties210 – although they may have the same owner. This movement of cattle from ranch to ranch, coupled with a lack of transparency, provides the opportunity to ‘launder’ animals from ranches where illegal or destructive practices have occurred through ranches not associated with such practices.

In 2020, Brazil’s largest beef processors announced several new initiatives and technological developments to support their commitments in the Amazon and beyond. These include the use of blockchain (JBS),211 various satellite-based deforestation monitoring platforms and supply chain monitoring tools for the Brazilian cattle sector.212

The main barriers to clean supply chains and forest protection are not technological. While these services may improve corporate intelligence, they are set to undermine public scrutiny and corporate accountability. Visipec, for instance, used by both Marfrig and Minerva,213 specifically states that its monitoring tool is ‘not openly available’ and was ‘designed specifically for use by meatpackers (and service providers) … using Visipec will not give NGOs any new information on potential noncompliance issues’.214

Transparency – public access to high-quality information – is vital to ensuring that commodities sectors can be held to account for their externalised environmental and social costs, and is thus a precondition for any meaningful efforts to address the social injustices and environmental challenges the world faces.

Map data: Google Earth / Image © Maxar Technologies © Greenpeace

January 2019 – February 2021: Beef from JBS slaughterhouses linked to the Pantanal fires in supermarkets belonging to the French groups Carrefour and Casino as well as Israeli chain Shufersal and Kai Bo Frozen Meat Supermarket in Hong Kong.

JBS CaMPO GRaNDE: SIF 4400

Map data: Google Earth / Image © Maxar Technologies

MaRFRIG PONTES E LaCERDa: SIF 1900

JBS PEDR SIF 2019 a PRETa:

Map data: Google Earth / Image © Maxar Technologies

JBS aRaPUTaNGa: SIF 2979 JBS BaRRa DO GaRCaS: SIF 42

© Greenpeace

Map data: Google Earth / Image © Maxar Technologies © Greenpeace