Soy and meat traders Bunge, Cargill and JBS rank worst for Brazil deforestation

Bunge, Cargill and JBS have been deemed the “Terrible Trio” after being ranked worst for Brazilian deforestation.

Environmental NGO Mighty Earth’s new Soy & Cattle Deforestation Tracker tool ranked 10 of the word’s biggest soy and meat companies on their “likely links” to cases of deforestation in Brazil’s threatened forests such as the Amazon and the Cerrado.

It found Bunge and Cargill were the soy traders linked to the most deforestation, with Brazilian beef giant JBS the worst of the meatpackers.

The tool was backed by a database of 172 recent cases reported by environmental groups, linking 10 major soy and meat traders to 330,296 hectares of deforestation and land degradation in Brazil between February 2022 and July 2024 – an area twice the size of London.

The new data also showed the companies were “far from meeting many of the companies’ targets to be deforestation and conversion-free by 2025”, Mighty Earth said.

Big soy and cattle traders are also involved in an alleged push to weaken the historic 2006 Soy Moratorium deal, according to a Guardian report.

Environmental campaigners close to an ongoing negotiation in Brazil claimed soy traders were pushing to amend the current ban that forbids buying soybeans from farms on deforested land in the Amazon rainforest.

WWF said this could open up 1.1 million hectares of forest for soy production and drive the Amazon closer to a dangerous “tipping point”.

“Leave it to the meat industry to flush its own successes down the toilet and double down on its rapacious image,” said Mighty Earth’s CEO Glenn Hurowitz.

Alongside the tracker tool, Mighty Earth also launched a new scorecard to mark a year of its ‘Rapid Response’ deforestation monitoring programme.

This project evaluates how companies have responded to the group’s deforestation alerts over the past year, and highlights any “inaction and lack of accountability” by soy traders and meatpackers in tackling deforestation in their supply chains.

Scored across four categories – responsiveness, transparency, action and zero deforestation and conversion policy – worst-placed JBS scored just 10/100, Cargill scored 11/100 and Bunge 31/100.

Read more:

• WWF: UK supermarkets ‘off track’ to meet critical environmental targets

• Soy deforestation in Brazil on rise as Cargill accused of exposing UK poultry to law breaches

• Soy traders lagging behind major legislation against illegal deforestation

LDC leads the scorecard with 42 points out of 100, and has the highest scoring deforestation and conversion-free policy, while ADM in second place is the only company to publish deforestation cases in a public grievance log.

João Gonçalves, Mighty Earth senior director for Brazil, said big soy and meat traders still “lacked transparency and failed to act on cleaning up their soy and cattle supply chains.

“Our data shows an area twice the size of London has been destroyed across the Amazon, Cerrado and Pantanal, as the meat industry continues to wage its war on nature, while recent clearing threatens Indigenous communities.

“Given what Brazil has experienced this year – record forest fires, flooding, and drought – soy and cattle traders need to urgently stop buying from farms involved in deforestation, which is fuelling global heating and worsening the climate and nature crisis,” he added.

Europe is a key market for Brazilian soy, with exports of soybeans and soymeal up by 6.3% from January to September 2024, compared with the same period in 2023.

Soybean exports to the UK, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Spain increased by 20% for the first nine months of this year, compared to the same period last year.