"BNDES finances meatpacking companies that source from deforested farms and use slave labour", 04 November 2021

Brazil’s National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES) is financing meatpacking companies that slaughter animals raised on farms that have been illegally deforested, interdicted by Ibama, overlapping conservation units or indigenous lands, and that use slave labour in their activities. This is revealed by a Repórter Brasil exclusive report that looked into loans totalling R$ 46 million given to 25 small slaughterhouses located in the Amazon, where 90% of all the forest felled becomes pasture for livestock.

Since 2009, the bank’s internal regulations have banned loans to meatpacking companies that have farms with social and environmental irregularities among their suppliers...

Nevertheless, in 2012, 2016 and 2017, meat companies Masterboi, São Francisco, Ribeiro Soares, Fortefrigo, Mercúrio (Pará) and Boi Branco (Mato Grosso) – all of which have BNDES funding – slaughtered at least 11,513 animals from farms interdicted by Ibama and 1,479 raised on properties included in Brazil’s dirty list of slave labour...

The irregularities were found by the Federal Prosecution Service (MPF) in audits carried out on the companies’ purchases, both in their own investigations (in the case of Boi Branco) and as a result of the Conduct Adjustment Agreements (so-called Meat TACs) that verify social and environmental compliance in their operations...

BNDES did not comment on the cases, although it asked Repórter Brasil to extend the deadline by more than 30 days. After informing that the answers to the questions were “being validated,” the bank stopped responding to e-mails. Masterboi, Fortefrigo and São Francisco (Sampaio) did not respond either, despite Repórter Brasil’s insistence. Mercúrio, Ribeiro Soares and Boi Branco sustain that they comply with their social and environmental commitments and that the irregularities pointed out were isolated cases. Full responses can be read here...

Loans granted to meatpackers with irregularities were intermediated by financial institutions that are BNDES partners: Itaú Unibanco, Banco do Brasil and Bradesco...

“Companies should demonstrate a basic level of compliance and organization so that the financial institution can feel safe when granting credit. These meatpackers are taking a lot of environmental risks, but they won’t commit to sectorial agreements and they get public funds anyway,” says Lisandro Inakake, who coordinates NGO Imaflora’s Boi na Linha project...