- A new report by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) shows how cattle raised illegally in the Apyterewa Indigenous Territory in Brazil were laundered into the supply chains of two of the world’s biggest beef companies, JBS and Frigol.
- In most cases, the illegal cattle were able to enter these supply chains because they were not transferred directly to JBS and Frigol, but to legal farms first, which allowed ranchers to falsely declare the origin of cattle raised in Apyterewa.
- Between 2020 and early 2023, Pará’s phytosanitary agency (Adepará) issued transportation permits for almost 12,000 cattle to be transferred from 58 illegal farms in Apyterewa to farms outside the territory.
- The report’s authors call for mandatory systems to track individual cattle from birth to slaughter to prevent illegal cattle from entering supply chains.
A new report by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) reveals how illegal cattle raised in the Apyterewa Indigenous Territory were laundered into the supply chains of two of Brazil’s largest beef companies, JBS and Frigol, between 2020 and early 2023.
Before a government crackdown in late 2023, an estimated 60,000 cattle were being raised in Apyterewa, which is the home of the Parakanã Indigenous peoples in the state of Pará, despite commercial ranching being illegal there under federal law. At the time, invaders had razed more than 47,600 hectares (117,600 acres) of land, turning Apyterewa into the most deforested Indigenous territory in the Amazon.
“More than half of our land was deforested,” Ty’e Parakanã, an Indigenous leader of the Parakanã peoples, told Mongabay in a voice message. “It completely destroyed our land and polluted our river.” The government operation to evict invaders is still underway, he said. “There are still cattle, and they are taking them out slowly.”
The EIA report presents several case studies that demonstrate how illegal cattle were able to enter the supply chains of JBS and Frigol. In the first case, cattle were moved from inside Apyterewa without transportation permits, known as GTAs, to farms outside the Indigenous territory. The farmers then falsely declared the animals were raised on legal farms, therefore concealing the true origin of the cattle.
One example of a farm that may have been used by illegal ranchers is Fazenda Boi Branco in the São Félix do Xingu municipality, which borders Apyterewa. After analyzing GTAs and other evidence, the authors found that between January 2020 and March 2023, the farm transported 2,730 more animals than it received. It is possible that the cattle never stepped inside Fazenda Boi Branco but were named in the GTA as having originated from there.
“We call it cattle laundering when cattle raised on illegally deforested land are moved to a farm that does not have deforestation, and this farm sells directly to the meat company,” Rick Jacobsen, manager of commodities policy at EIA, told Mongabay over a video call.
Nikolas Kuschnig, a researcher from the Vienna University of Economics and Business, told Mongabay that this cattle laundering maneuver complicates supply chain interventions and provides a market for cattle from illegally deforested areas.
In other cases, the state phytosanitary agency (Adepará) issued GTAs for the movement of cattle raised illegally inside the Indigenous territory to farms outside. The EIA found that between 2020 and early 2023, Adepará issued transportation permits for almost 12,000 cattle to be transferred from 58 illegal farms in Apyterewa to farms outside the territory.
“State agencies continue to issue cattle transportation permits (GTA) for cattle raised in illegally deforested areas, and these permits are not made public,” said Paul Barreto, senior researcher at Imazon (Amazon Institute of People and the Environment). Adepará, which is responsible for issuing these permits, did not respond to Mongabay’s requests for comment by the time of publication.
Weak animal traceability systems
While there are laws in Brazil against purchasing cattle raised inside Indigenous territories and protected areas, Barreto told Mongabay the country has no mandatory system to track individual cattle from birth to slaughter, which is why illegal animals were able to enter the supply chains of major companies. State and federal prosecutors have so far focused on enforcing the laws when it comes to direct suppliers, but animals are often transferred between two or more farms before being sold for slaughter, Jacobsen said.
Both JBS and Frigol have signed legally binding Terms of Adjusted Conduct (TACs) with federal prosecutors committing to not purchase cattle from farms that contain illegal deforestation or that overlap with protected areas or Indigenous territories, and they have also committed to monitor the suppliers of their direct suppliers by 2025. However, the authors say neither has systems in place to monitor and ensure compliance in their indirect supply chains. “Illegal ranchers can easily add another step in their supply chain to get around these systems, given the weakness in oversight of the GTAs and property registrations,” Jacobsen said.
Another measure that is recommended by the EIA is for EU member states to implement the regulation on deforestation-free products (EUDR), which would require any companies that import or export commodities from the EU to prove the products are deforestation-free, as well as the FOREST Act in the U.S., which restricts certain commodities produced on illegally deforested land from accessing the U.S. market. Jacobsen told Mongabay that these would require traceability back to the birth farm of the animal, therefore ensuring what is said to be deforestation-free truly is.
“JBS has advocated for some time that the definitive solution to the environmental issue in Brazilian livestock lies in a mandatory national traceability program, capable of establishing a common set of socioenvironmental monitoring information for farms to expedite progress,” a company spokesperson told Mongabay. Frigol did not respond to Mongabay’s requests for comment.
According to the report, of the 12,000 cattle that were moved from Apyterewa, 6,142 were transferred to 43 intermediary farms that sold cattle to JBS during the same period and 31 of them also sold to Frigol. Many cattle were moved to two or more farms before being sold to meat companies, which demonstrates the importance of full life cycle traceability systems to prevent illegal cattle from entering supply chains, the authors write.
EIA researchers identify a farm in the São Félix do Xingu municipality, named Sítio 2 Irmãs, which is a few kilometers away from Taboca – a small village that Brazil’s federal environmental law enforcement agency (IBAMA) described as a base for land-grabbing and cattle laundering in May 2023 – which received 1,075 animals from seven illegal farms inside Apyterewa between 2020 and early 2023. Under the state’s CAR database, the farm’s registration states that the total area of the property is 70 hectares (172.97 acres), with at most 47 hectares (116.14 acres) for production, yet this property sold more than 23,000 cattle during this time. Around 65% of the 23,000 cattle were sold to Frigol and 12% to JBS.
“If cattle are raised illegally, then they should be excluded from the supply chain of these companies,” Jacobsen said. “An illegal cow is still an illegal cow, regardless of whether it went to another farm before being sold to the meat company.”
Banner image: The Apyterewa village, home of the Parakanã Indigenous Peoples in the Brazilian state of Pará, was the most deforested Indigenous territory in the Amazon before a government operation to evict invaders and illegal cattle was launched in late 2023. Image by: Streetsfilm/hr.
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