Expansion of cattle-ranching is the key driver of deforestation in the Amazon. In the 1980s, well-known environmentalist Norman Myers coined the phrase “the hamburger connection” to describe deforestation resulting from the rapid growth of beef exports from Central America to fast food chains in the United States. At the time Brazil exported very little beef, but exports have tripled since the late 1990s and 80% of the growth in production has been in the Amazon.
Supply
| • | Today, Brazil has the world’s biggest commercial herd with the lowest production costs, due in large part to grass grazing and the illegal use of land in the Amazon. |
| • | It is estimated that nearly 80% of land deforested in the Amazon between 1996 and 2006 is now used for cattle pasture.According to Greenpeace, grass-fed beef production is the largest driver of deforestation in the region. |
| • | Brazil has good forest laws but has lacked resources to implement them. It has made an ambitious commitment to reduce deforestation by 70% by 2017. Poor state control over public land in the Amazon still facilitates land grabbing in the rainforest, which is seen as free. |
Demand
| • | Huge growth in demand for beef is projected, due to increases in population and shifts in consumer preference linked to growing affluence in emerging markets. Brazil has a large domestic market, but between 1990 and 2001 the percentage of Europe's processed meat imports that came from Brazil rose from 40 to 74 percent. |
| • | Meat imports often remain strong despite any financial crisis. Faced with financial pressures consumers don’t switch away from meat, but tend to trade down to lower cost products, which are actually more likely to contain forest risk commodities. |
| • | Brazil has good forest laws but has lacked resources to implement them. It has made an ambitious commitment to reduce deforestation by 70% by 2017. Poor state control over public land in the Amazon still facilitates land grabbing in the rainforest, which is seen as free. |
| • | The provenance of beef produced on deforested land is easily concealed within ready meals, and canned and pre-packed goods. Currently labelling requirements for meat in the EU do not include its place of origin, allowing imports packaged in Europe to be labelled as European. |
| • | According to a recent Greenpeace report, slaughterhouses on the frontier of deforestation are major suppliers of leather to businesses in Italy, the US and China that supply top global fashion, furniture and car brands. This is believed to contribute up to a quarter of the profits from brazil’s cattle industry. |
Land Conversion & Wider Sustainability Challenges
| • | The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has estimated that livestock-related emissions account for about 18% of the world's total greenhouse gas emissions, due to deforestation, energy use, and methane emissions from cattle. Beef production has other sustainability impacts that will also become harder to justify economically in a resource constrained world: 1kg of beef requires 15,500 litres of water to produce, versus 4,900 for Pork, 3,000 for Rice and 900 for Maize. |
| • | Studies by the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (EMBRAPA) indicate that the restoration of degraded lands could potentially allow for 100 million head of cattle to be raised on 40 million hectares of pasture, representing a 42% increase in the herd size compared to 2007, and a 35% reduction in land use compared to 2006. However, the lack of investment in the restoration of degraded pastures and the lack of a focus on small-scale production impede the spread of sustainable practices. |
Standards Setting and Third Party Certification
| • | At present there are few choices for companies using beef to work within multi-stakeholder or third party certification systems. Those that wish to avoid beef from deforested land tend either to develop bi-lateral relationships audited to their own standards or to source more products locally. |
| • | Recently Bertin, one of Brazil’s largest beef exporters that has been heavily criticized by NGOs for its practices in the Amazon region, partnered with sustainable ranchers’ association Aliança da Terra to establish new criteria for sustainably produced beef. |
