More than 800m Amazon trees felled in six years to meet beef demand

All of the meat plants belonged to Brazil's three large beef operators and exporters: JBS, Marfrig and Minerva. The overall deforestation figure for the farms supplying JBS, Marfrig and Minerva is likely to be higher, because these companies operate other plants elsewhere in the Amazon. It is also an issue in other parts of the world, such as the EU, the UK or China, which import Amazon deforestation. According to another analysis by The Guardian for Bruno and Dom's project, Amazonian slaughterhouses owned by these companies processed more than $5 billion worth of cattle while still in Brazil in 2022, more value is said to be added along the complex supply chain and, by an overwhelming margin, the economic value of this industry is being realized outside Brazil, on the plates of restaurants in Beijing and New York. The farm was also connected to the indirect supply of more than 18,000 animals through the three meatpackers between 2018 and 2019, according to Aidenvironment. Then, the team appeared to show that cows from one farm under sanctions for illegal deforestation had been trucked from JBS to a second "clean" farm. However, our investigation has found that the owner now supplies Marfrig, another of Brazil's Big Three meatpackers.