Revealed: world’s largest meat company may break Amazon deforestation pledges again

The world’s largest meat company, JBS, looks set to break itsAmazon rainforestprotection promises again, according to frontline workers.Beef production is the primary driver of deforestation, as trees are cleared to raise cattle, and scientists warn this is pushing the Amazon close to a tipping point that would accelerate its shift from a carbon sink into a carbon emitter. JBS, the Brazil-headquartered multinational that dominates the Brazilian cattle market, promised to address this with a commitment to clean up its beef supply chain in the region by the end of 2025.In a project to understand the barriers to progress on Amazon deforestation, a team of journalists from the Guardian, Unearthed and Repórter Brasil interviewed more than 35 people, including ranchers and ranching union leaders who represent thousands of farms in the states of Pará and Rondônia. The investigation found widespread disbelief that JBS would be able to complete the groundwork and hit its deforestation targets.“They certainly have the will to do it, just as we have the will to do it,” said one rancher. But the goal that all the cattle they bought would be deforestation-free was unreachable, he said. “They say this is going to be implemented. I’d say straight away: that’s impossible.” The problem of illegal cattle laundering would also not be resolved in time, said many, while another interviewee said land ownership issues meant quite simply that the deadline was “impossible”.JBS told the Guardian that it contested the conclusions. “Drawing inferences and conclusions from a limited sample of 30 farmers while disregarding that JBS has over 40,000 registered suppliers is entirely irresponsible,” the company said in a statement. It said that “while the sector-wide challenges are significant and larger than any one company can solve on its own, we believe JBS has an in-depth and robust series of integrated policies, systems, and investments that are making a material and positive impact on reducing deforestation risks.”Amazon tree cover mapTo hit its targets, JBS needs to register all its direct and indirect suppliers and ensure none of the meat it buys from the Amazon is from cattle that has grazed on deforested land. It has established a network of “green offices” to provide free consultation to ranchers on how to comply with the three- to six-month process of regularisation, which involves drawing up a plan to plant more trees, withdrawing from contested territory, or making other environmental remediations. Then details will go into the JBS database, which continually monitors farms using artificial intelligence, and owners will be contacted if they fail to meet their obligations. In Pará, the company is also working with the state government on an ear-tagging scheme that would track the state’s entire herd of 26 million cattle by 2026.The Pará state governor, Helder Barbalho, who has supported the traceability plan, expects JBS to meet its deadline, but he acknowledged there had been resistance and that small farmers in particular would need more support. He said the Bezos Earth Fund had committed 143m reais to this task: “We are still mobilising resources so that we can finance this policy that is very important for us to present to livestock farmers.”But ranchers and rancher unions interviewed by the Guardian and its partners said that technical hurdles and uncertainties over land ownership – many ranches were created by invading public land – stood no chance of resolution by the company’s self-imposed deadline.Adelosmar Antonio Orio, known as Ticão, who works for the Tucumaã-Ourilaãndia Union of Rural Producers, said the logistical challenges, such as ranchers needing special equipment including ear trackers and satellite internet systems, would make the scheme impossible to complete before the year-end deadline. “Not even they [JBS] know how this traceability is going to be implemented,” he said. Others argued that new small- and medium-sized producers were being asked to bear most of the burden of the new system and that JBS and the government had not done enough to explain the new tracking system and provide the technological support needed to make it work.skip past newsletter promotionSign up toDown to EarthFree weekly newsletterThe planet's most important stories. Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essentialEnter your email addressSign upPrivacy Notice:Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see ourPrivacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the GooglePrivacy PolicyandTerms of Serviceapply.after newsletter promotion‘They knew that we were here’: following in the footsteps of the uncontacted Pardo River Kawahiva peopleRead moreThe thorny subject of land ownership would also be impossible to resolve, argued many, including Cristina Malcher, the president of the Commission of Women in Agribusiness, a national advocacy body for women in agriculture. “The deadline of 2025 is impossible to meet, because if you don’t know who owns the land, then you don’t have environmental regularity,” Malcher told the Guardian.Ticão agreed. “By the end of the year, we need to resolve all the land problems, all the environmental problems.” Could it be done in time? “Definitely not,” he said. His union colleagues expressed similar disbelief that the deadline could be met.The investigation also spoke to indirect suppliers who openly admitted to using middlemen to clean up the environmental record of their livestock, a practice known as cattle laundering. Several producers predicted that a new tracing system would lead to new loopholes, such as slaughtering the cattle elsewhere and then selling the meat – rather than live cattle – at a low price to JBS.Graph of Amazon deforestation in Pará and Mato GrossoJBS has not mapped its entire supply chain, due under its deforestation commitments by the end of this year. But the company said: “JBS has already enrolled the equivalent of over 80% of its annual cattle purchases on to a blockchain-enabled, web-based transparent farming livestock platform.”JBS has previously been linked to deforestation on a number of occasions, and the New York attorney general, Letitia James,filed a lawsuitlast year accusing the company of misleading consumers with its climate goals in an effort to increase sales. A bipartisan group of 15 US senators urged the Securities and Exchange Commission to reject JBS’s application for a share listing. “Dozens of journalistic and NGO reports have shown that JBS is linked to more destruction of forests and other ecosystems than any other company in Brazil,” they wrotein an open letter.JBS told the Guardian: “The challenges of addressing illegal deforestation on cattle operations that span millions of farms across hundreds of thousands of square kilometresare significant.” It detailed its response, which includes zero tolerance for deforestation sourcing policy, state-of-the-art supply chain monitoring, free technical assistance for producers to help regularise their farms, and the JBS Fund for the Amazon, whichfinances projects focused onthe sustainable development of the Amazon biome.The company also said: “JBS works with farmers, ranchers and partners across the food system to develop solutions that support a growing global population while optimising resources and reducing agriculture’s environmental impact.Cattleraising in the Amazon is undergoing a sectoral transformation, and one company cannot solve all the industry’s challenges.”