Brazil needs a mandatory government program to track cattle being raised for beef to prevent deforestation, says the head of the world’s largest meat company, Brazil’s JBS SA.
Cattle ranching, along with clearing land to sell timber or grow crops, is driving deforestation in the Amazon rainforest. The destruction of rainforests, which serve as carbon sinks, imperils global climate targets.
“The only solution for this deforestation in Brazil is to have a national mandatory traceability system,” JBS CEO Gilberto Tomazoni said on a webcast of a New York Times panel on climate change.
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“Then we can track individual by individual the animals. We don’t have, so far, a national program for traceability.”