On September 29, 2023, Jornal da Globo presented the situation of the meat and leather market and the individual traceability pilot project carried out with slaughterhouses and Durli Leathers. Read the content of the article or access the Globo video.
Brazilian Cattle Herd Hits Record 234.4 Million Animals
Brazil's cattle herd hit a record high last year, with more than 234 million animals, and the big challenge facing the country's producers is to reconcile farming with the preservation of forests.
The image you can't see is just a fraction of the space that Brazilian livestock farming occupies. Almost 20% of the national territory is already dedicated to cattle farming. The challenge is to prevent the growth of the production that helps to sustain Brazil's trade balance and feed the world from going beyond the agricultural frontier, which separates the countryside from the forest.
According to Lisandro Inakake de Souza, Imaflora's project coordinator, deforestation in Brazil has some important vectors, which we call drivers of deforestation, one of which is livestock farming.
According to Mapbiomas, more than half of the areas converted to pasture in more than three decades have come from native vegetation, an area larger than the territory of France (61.4 million hectares between 1985 and 2022). The environmental risk keeps important buyers away.
Brazilian exports hit a record last year, over 2 million tons. Our production reached more than 150 countries, with more than half of Brazilian cattle going to a single customer, China (54.70%). The second buyer is the United States, in a much smaller proportion (5.93%). The European Union comes in 5th place (3.77%), behind countries like Egypt (4.27%) and Hong Kong (4.19%).
"Regulations are being put forward by meat-buying countries to try to push for measures to be taken in Brazil. So we need to look at these demands, which come as a great opportunity and offer the social and environmental quality of the Brazilian product." Lisandro Inakake de Souza, Imaflora project coordinator.
Since 2009, slaughterhouses in the Amazon, a biome watched around the world today, has committed to some kind of traceability in the chain to combat deforestation. In 2019, Imaflora, in partnership with the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office, took an important step with the Boi na Linha Protocol. Since then, the industry has been monitoring a series of socio-environmental indicators. But in practice, this only applies to direct suppliers.
"Today, Brazil has official traceability based on a document called the Animal Transit Guide, which controls the movement of groups of animals. The other way is to have individual traceability, so you can follow the path of that individual animal, where it has been." Fernando Sampaio - ABIEC's sustainability director.
The solution suggested by experts to protect the Amazon rainforest involves technology to monitor the production chain. In Rio Maria, southeastern Pará, there is already a pilot program to track animals. Farmers join on a voluntary basis and the aim is to transform cattle farming into a sustainable activity. The calves receive an earring that is not transferable. It contains information about the animal's origin and health, and this data is used to show that the farm complies with environmental and health requirements.
The information is monitored by an environmental consultancy and a certification company accredited by SISBOV - the Brazilian Traceability System.
"Every time an animal is transferred from one property to another, we use official identification, so it goes to the national SISBOV database. There, the animal is transferred from one adherent farm to another adherent farm and then the animal is accompanied throughout its life until it reaches the industry" Jordan Timo Carvalho - agronomist and director of Niceplanet.
A farm in Rio Maria, in the south of Pará, which participates in the program, raises calves for nine months until weaning, which is the starting point of a long production chain.
When it leaves the first farm, the herd is sold to rearing farms, where the cattle grow into adults. Then the animal goes to fattening farms, a short cycle where the cattle gain weight before slaughter.
"This tracking goes as far as the label on the meat of the animals, where a QR Code will transfer to a website telling us the full life of that animal. So it's grown up on the Rincão farm, reared on farm X, and fattened on farm XX. So you'll know the animal's total life". Humberto Paulinelli - cattle farmer.
"Sometimes the beef goes through three, four, five farms in its life, until it arrives at slaughterhouse. Since 2009, our industry has controlled socio-environmental criteria when buying beef. Looking at the Amazon, these companies already control exports, 84% of slaughter is already monitored and audited and we even intend to reach 100% control by next year. But the meatpacking industry is able to do this today for the farm that supplies directly to the meatpacker. So that's the real challenge today, extending this control, this traceability to the entire chain. Fernando Sampaio - ABIEC's sustainability director.
This is a green passport to new markets that goes beyond meat.
The skin of the oxen slaughtered at slaughterhouse in Rio Maria comes to this tannery in the neighboring municipality of Xinguara, where around 4,500 pieces (Durli Leathers) of leather are produced every day. The company exports 80% of its production to Europe and Asia and feels pressure from its customers. Here the challenge is greater to prove the origin of the leather, because this is one of the last stages in the production chain. The way to meet market demands is to buy the raw material from certified slaughterhouses , to avoid social and environmental problems that could harm the business.
Each hide produced receives a stamp. The numbering indicates the slaughterhouse of origin, the day the animal was slaughtered and the year the leather was made. This information is now supplemented by the entire history recorded on the earrings throughout the life of each animal.
Some clients, for example, have decided: "I no longer want to buy from tanneries or slaughterhouses that are in the Amazon biome". We demand it from slaughterhouse and only buy from slaughterhouses which has a monitoring system and which does traceability and analyzes the socio-environmental compliance of its purchases. This already contributes to a deforestation-free chain. - Ivens Domingos - sustainability manager at Durli Leathers.
The pilot project in Rio Maria is expected to track around 100,000 animals on farms in the region by the end of the year.
Cattle from the Amazon currently have some restrictions, in Europe, the United States, which pays well, Korea and Japan. With this traceability, we're already working on being able to sell this meat from Pará to some countries that Brazil isn't even authorized to sell to today. So there will be an advantage. A lot of people here work well. Traceability is the way to show that you work well, there's no other way. Roberto Paulinelli - cattle farmer and industrialist.