A new investigation by Repórter Brasil reveals links between JBS and Marfrig and a farmer accused of brutal 2017 killings
Large-scale cattle ranching in Brazil.
Repórter Brasil has revealed that
farmer Valdelir João de Souza, a fugitive charged with nine murders during a
brutal April 2017 massacre in the Amazon, has since indirectly supplied cattle
to top Brazilian meatpackers JBS and Marfrig.
The Brazilian environmental news outlet found that
throughout 2018 de Souza sold cattle to other farmers that went on to provide
cattle to JBS, the world’s largest beef producer, and Marfrig, one of Brazil’s
top three meat producers.
Despite being a fugitive, de Souza has allegedly continued
to raise cattle in a farm illegally established in an area set aside by the
government for agrarian reform.
According to documentation obtained by Repórter Brasil, on 9
May 2018 de Souza’s Três Lagoas farm sold 143 cattle to the Erança de Meu Pai
farm, owned by Maurício Narde. Eleven minutes later, Narde sold 143 animals
with the same age and sex characteristics to a JBS slaughterhouse.
According to the investigation, this case is an example of
potential cattle laundering contaminating JBS’s supply chain.
The widespread practice of cattle laundering in Brazil makes
it possible for farms with dirty environmental or human rights records to
supply large slaughterhouses by first selling their animals to “clean” ranches,
which then sell the cows to the meatpackers.
Mauro Armelin, director of Friends of the Earth in Brazil,
told Repórter Brasil: “It makes no sense for an animal to stay 11 minutes at a
farm before moving on to a slaughterhouse. This story has all the elements of a
triangulation process for cattle laundering.”
Farms that sell cattle to other farms that then supply
meatpackers are known as indirect suppliers and largely operate under the radar
without much scrutiny. Slaughterhouses, including
Marfrig, admit to not being able to monitor them.
In another example, on 25 June 2018, de Souza sold 153 heads
of cattle to the Morro Alto farm, owned by José Carlos de Albuquerque. That
year Albuquerque appeared on JBS’s list of suppliers and is known to have
supplied a Marfrig slaughterhouse in the state of Rondônia.
Both JBS and Marfrig have adopted legal commitments with
federal prosecutors, known as TAC Agreements, to monitor their supply chains
and exclude farms guilty of illegal deforestation and other crimes from their
supply chains.
De Souza’s Três Lagoas farm was deforested in 2015, which
violates JBS commitments under the TAC Agreement not to purchase cattle from
areas deforested after 2009.
In April 2018 Earthsight reported that Cedroarana, a timber company belonging to fugitive de
Souza, had exported more than 300 tonnes of lumber to US firm Industrial Pine
Products after the massacre took place.
The farmer who supplied 143 heads of cattle to JBS, Maurício
Narde, worked for Cedroarana between 2007 and 2017.
JBS and Marfrig have denied
any wrongdoing related to Reporter Brazil’s investigation and
reiterated their commitments to environmental preservation and human rights in
their supply chains.
Last year Earthsight exposed the commercial links between JBS and major UK supermarkets
Sainsbury’s, Lidl, Morrisons and Asda, which continued to source corned beef
from the Brazilian firm following a series of corruption scandals and deforestation
cases linked to the meatpacking giant.
Earthsight research has
also detailed how rations packs used by the British army had for years been
stocked with JBS beef from Brazil.
This year JBS and other large meat firms have been under pressure to improve monitoring of their indirect suppliers to tackle
illegal deforestation, land conflicts, human rights abuses, and land grabbing
in their supply chains.
