Health Law

Brazil Meatpackers Battle Deforestation

By Dan Flynn and Suzanna Schreck

Brazil's three largest meatpackers, JBS Friboi, Marfrig Alimentos and Minerva, have suspended cattle purchases from 221 ranches located on indigenous land, conservation areas, or near recently-deforested areas in the Amazon, according to reports submitted to Greenpeace.

After Greenpeace released its "Slaughtering the Amazon" report exposing links between cattle ranching in the Amazon region and deforestation, the companies signed pacts to change their practices.

"The initiative shows that meatpackers understood, in a clear and definitive way, consumers' environmental concern message. This announcement indicates that the process is moving forward, that companies are taking steps on the matter," Greenpeace campaign coordinator Márcio Astrini told AE Brazil Newswire.

According to Meatingplace, Astrini also said that by the end of the year a much larger number of ranches will be excluded from the companies' cattle supplier list.

Pictured:  In some regions of the Brazilian Amazon, scattered tree stubs are the only indication that a forest once existed.  Credit: Robert Walker, Geography Department, Michigan State University.  From:  National Science Foundation Website

Full post as published by Food Safety News on July 28, 2010 (boomark / email).