Beef from Brazil and other South American countries has been criticized for some time, as deforested areas are often converted into pastureland in a timely manner!
Now the first supermarket chains are listing beef from deforestation regions!
Brazil is the world’s largest beef exporter.
The South American country exports around 2 million t of beef annually, including to the European Union.
But export success is in jeopardy because Brazil has a problem, an image problem.
His agricultural exports are repeatedly associated with the illegal slash and burn in the #Amazonas and in other rainforest areas.
Some large retail chains from the Netherlands, France, Belgium and Great Britain, including Albert Heijn and #Lidl Netherlands, have now pulled the emergency brake.
They are deleting beef and beef products from Brazil in whole or in part.
The “Reporter Brasil”, a network of investigative journalists, and the environmental organization “Mighty Earth” got the ball rolling.
Together they have traced the origins of beef steaks, corned beef and dried meat on the shelves of Albert Heijn, Lidl, Carrefour and Sainsbury’s back to the farms in Brazil.
The reporters uncovered a system they call “Cattle washing ,” based on laundering money, for example, from drug trafficking revenues.
When washing cattle, the animals are briefly kept on farms in regions where there is little or no deforestation in two JBS*plants in São Paulo before they are slaughtered.
This gives them a “clean” origin.
However, these cattle had previously been raised on farms created by illegal slash and burn.
Some of the operators of these farms have been convicted under Brazilian law for illegal logging of rainforests and the destruction of protected areas.
Their farms are under an embargo and are actually no longer allowed to sell cattle.
However, they circumvent the embargo by selling their animals alive to unpolluted ranches, which in turn deliver them for slaughter at JBS.
JBS is the world’s largest beef supplier.
In Brazil alone, the company slaughters around 35,000 cattle every day, according to Mighty Earth.
The organization Mighty Earth confronted the trading group Ahold Delhaize with its chains Albert Heijn and Delhaize as well as other trading companies with the research of “Repórter Brasil”.
Albert Heijn, market leader in grocery retail in the Netherlands, then agreed not to buy any more Brazilian beef for its more than 1,000 stores in the country.
Delhaize, one of the largest chains in Belgium, and Carrefour Belgium want to take JBS Jack Link’s products off the shelves.
Lidl Netherlands even wants to completely dispense with beef from South America from January 2022.
In France, the retail chain Auchan responded to the research and will not sell JBS dried meat in the future.
The British chain Sainsbury’s will no longer produce its own brand of corned beef from Brazilian beef.
*JBS S. A.= (Abbreviation for José Batista Sobrinho Sociedade Anônima)
➡ https: //www.agrarheute.com/…/ supermaerkte-listen …
And I mean…First it burns, then the cattle come, later the soy. This vicious circle has fueled the destruction in the Amazon for decades.
Brazil is on the verge of overtaking the United States as the world’s largest producer of soy.
In Brazil there are more cattle than people: more than 215 million cattle are compared to 210 million people.
No country exports more beef and poultry than Brazil.
Between 1996 and 2006, 10 million hectares of primeval forest were destroyed for cattle production in the Amazon region, reports Greenpeace.
That corresponds roughly to the entire forest area in Germany.
Today, JPS is one of the world’s largest meat producers and exporters.
The company sells in over 150 countries.
In the US it is the leading processor of beef, pork and meat lamb; in Canada the leader in the beef production and the world’s largest beef cattle fattener.
In addition, JBS has company shares e.g. in Australia, Paraguay and Uruguay; all important countries in the international beef market.
The non-governmental organization Repórter Brasiluncovered enormous social grievances in meat production.
Investigative journalists have shown the connection between exploitative practices of the Brazilian meat industry and the shelves of well-known US and European supermarket chains (e.g. Walmart, Rewe, Lidl, Aldi and Tesco) as well as fast food restaurants such as McDonald’s and Burger King.
In 2009 the major Brazilian meat processors signed an agreement under which they had to ensure that no further clearing of the meat market could take place.
Research revealed that the results were generally very limited.
There were problems with the implementation and there were gaps in compliance with the requirements.
In addition, there was insufficient monitoring by the slaughterhouses and the movement of cattle from herds that did not meet the requirements into registered herds, which was not prevented.
The Fact is: Although the sale of meat from illegally deforested areas has been banned since 2009, controls are weak.
Breeding is booming, especially in the states in and around the Amazon region.
It’s not just about the cattle, it’s also about slave labor:
The working conditions of workers who take poultry from bringing farms to slaughterhouses are, according to the report
Brazil unreasonable.
Around 50,000 chickens are caught every day by about ten-person teams.
Around 15 million cages with seven to ten chickens are transported every day. Including travel time, the workers are often on the road for 12-17 hours.
Slavery-like structures have been identified in the JBS supply chains.
The risks increase for sinners, retailers react and list Brazilian beef.
Turning the Amazon into a huge slaughterhouse for raising livestock is one of the world’s greatest environmental crimes.
We welcome the announcement of the embargo and hope that the industry does indeed implement its promise.
My best regards to all, Venus
World Animals Voice 