Brazil’s choice of the Amazonian port city of Belém for the UN climate conference was intended to showcase the vital role of the rainforest in combating global warming.
With the world watching, the 46-year-old Helder Barbalho, governor of the COP30 host state of Pará, is trying to demonstrate he is serious about tackling the main driver of the biome’s destruction: unlawful land clearances for cattle ranching.
Timed for the COP30 summit, an initiative is being rolled out to track the territory’s millions of cows, calves and bulls via electronic ear tags by 2027.
“Everyone has to work together. The producer has to adopt good practices, the meat industry has to understand that this movement is important and necessary,” Barbalho said.
At her small mixed-use farm in Novo Repartimento, Maria Gorete Rios pointed to numbered yellow clips on her dozens of Nelore, a white humpback breed common in Brazil. “The demand is from the market, not just the state,” she said. “People don’t want product from dubious origins.”
Tree felling is behind almost half of Brazil’s greenhouse gas emissions, and grazing pasture accounts for 90 per cent of the area razed in the Amazon, according to non-profit group MapBiomas.
Maria Gorete Rios with one of her dozens of Nelore cattle: ‘People don’t want product from dubious origins’ © Michael Pooler/FT
The issue poses potential commercial risks for Brazil’s beef sector — the top exporter globally with $11.7bn of shipments in 2024.
The EU will soon ban the import of certain commodities linked to forest loss, and the bloc at present does not authorise beef imports from Pará state.
Along with slapping a 40 per cent tariff on Brazil, the US has said that illegal deforestation unfairly advantages its agriculture and timber.
With the South American nation’s main trade customer, China, also interested in the provenance of agricultural goods, tracking systems were likely to become a necessity, said Clovis Rossi, chief executive of agritech company Granter.
“It will ensure continued exports. Paraguay and Argentina are implementing individual traceability. So if Brazil doesn’t, the markets will buy from them instead,” he added. “It’s an opportunity to raise the world’s perception about the control and quality of Brazilian meat”.
Following a campaign by environmentalists for greater transparency into the origins of beef, the government of leftwing President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva — which has overseen a significant drop in Amazon deforestation — pledged to make all cattle individually traceable by 2032, joining the likes of Australia and Uruguay.
Nelore cattle at an auction in Xinguara in Pará state’s cattle country © Michael Pooler/FT
Yet Pará’s experiment illustrates the scale of the challenge: from convincing sceptical ranchers to effective enforcement in a territory larger than France, Germany and Belgium combined.
The state’s herd of 26mn across nearly 300,000 farms is Brazil’s second largest and similar in size to Australia’s. At least half of those animals are raised on illegally deforested land, according to research by Bain & Company and non-profit group The Nature Conservancy (TNC).
Ranching took off in south-east Pará from the 1970s when the military dictatorship sought to open up the Amazon to development. Along a highway cutting through the area, a once dense and diverse tropical forest is now largely scrubby grassland dotted with trees.
On his family’s sprawling estate with 20,000 animals in the cattle hub of Xinguara, third-generation rancher Guilherme Fraga is one of those in favour of the scheme who hopes it will boost prices and open new markets such as the EU. “I think it will increase the value [of cattle] in the future,” he said. “It’s necessary. Illegal deforestation has to stop.”
In Brazil, cattle can pass through several farms for fattening but abattoirs have long said it was not possible to identify the trail beyond their direct suppliers because of data protection rules.
Under the tagging plan, each cow will have a unique ID with details on properties where it was raised, cross-referenced against databases showing violations, such as illegal deforestation or impingement on indigenous territory. (Landowners in the Amazon forest must preserve 80 per cent of their property as native vegetation). Failure to comply could result in fines and seizures.
It will also allow officials to better identify and isolate disease outbreaks. “We will go from seeing animals in batches to individuals, which will help with sanitary issues,” said Barbra Lopes of Pará’s agriculture and livestock agency.
Improved livestock management could also lower emissions of methane, a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, over a 20-year period, by reducing the slaughter age.
Backers of the scheme including the Bezos Earth Fund, the world’s largest meatpacker JBS and supermarket chain Carrefour are donating 3mn tags, with the latter two also providing technical assistance.
JBS’s Brazil sustainability director, Liege Correia, is doubtful that consumers will pay a premium for deforestation-free meat, however. “The best financial incentive is that beef from Pará can be distributed in overseas markets that pay better,” she said.
Voluntary at present, the programme will be mandatory for any cattle transported from the start of 2026. So far, only some 300,000 have been tagged.
Raul Proença: ‘I view [the tracking programme] positively, and we’re advancing. I just wish the deadline weren’t so close’ © Michael Pooler/FT
Although herds of 100 or less will receive free ear tags, some small and middling producers worry about the extra costs of tags, which Lopes says will come to between about R$11.50 and R$18 ($2.16-$3.38).
“People will leave the business,” said dairy farmer Mario Jose de Souza, who has about 150 cows in Xinguara. “I can’t afford to pay someone for a day to help with tagging. The government is hurting the little guy.”
Others fear bad actors will continue to sell unregistered cattle in the informal market. And in a region with a frontier mentality, there is a degree of suspicion towards the state. “Fake news and a lack of information and understanding is the problem,” said the smallholder Rios.
Farmers will benefit through improved monitoring and management of herds, argues José Otavio Passos at TNC, which is supporting the rollout. “It’s a mechanism for modernising production, leading to better productivity and profitability.”
Outside the town of Marabá, Raul Proença, who owns a thousand cattle, has fitted only half of the 200 tags he received, since many other ranchers who buy cattle from him do not yet want tracked animals. “I view it positively, and we’re advancing. I just wish the deadline weren’t so close.”
Additional reporting by Beatriz Langella
Climate Capital
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