Kszepka 1

Ryder Kszepka

Professor Kochis

ENG-101-128

10/16/2023

The Beef Industry’s Negative Influence on Deforestation

In the online news article, “More Than 800m Amazon Trees Felled in Six Years to Meet

Neef Demand,” by Andrew Wasley et al. the authors say “[d]eforestation across Brazil soared

between 2019 and 2022… with cattle ranching being the number one cause” (Wasley et al.).

With the demand for food increasing every year, companies look to find ways to increase their

profits, and for the beef industry among others, it comes at the cost of the environment. Cattle

ranching requires land to raise the cattle as well as to grow the crops to feed them and to get the

space required, ranches in Brazil have resulted in destroying the Amazon. This is a problem that

affects the entire world and will continue to get worse if nothing is done. With how the problem

can impact the world, the negative influence brought by the beef industry needs to be dealt with

quickly.

To start, cattle ranching requires a large amount of space. With cattle being living

creatures, space to grow the food they eat is needed on top of the space for housing.

Slaughterhouses also require land as well as many other components of a supply chain not

directly part of the beef industry. In Anna Lappe’s work “The Climate Crisis at the End of Our

Fork” found in From Inquiry to Academic Writing a Text and Reader Lappe states “[globally,

one-third of the world’s arable land is dedicated to feed crop production” (754). Feedstock is

crops grown to feed animals, and taking up a large portion of land suitable for growing crops can

cause problems as it lowers the amount of land to grow crops for human consumption or wildlife
 Kszepka 2

habitats. In the article by Andrew Wasley et al. the authors brought up “In cases where the full

beef supply chain could be mapped, the study estimated that since 2017 there had been more

than 100 instances of forest loss on farms that directly supplied company plants.” While not clear

if one hundred instances means that one hundred separate farms are tied to forest loss or that a

smaller amount of farms had multiple instances, it is still a large amount of forest to be

destroyed. It is made worse by the fact that the cattle from these farms are still able to sell their

product which allows them to continue operating and potentially cause more deforestation.

Additionally, the problem of deforestation by the beef industry is a problem brought

about by greed. Having more and larger cattle ranches and farms to provide feed for cattle is to

be able to maximize the amount of cattle raised and eventually sold. Andrew Wasley et al.

brought up in their article “Amazon slaughterhouses belonging to these companies [JBS,

Marfrig, and Minerva] processed cattle worth more than $5bn (£4bn) while still in Brazil in

2022” (Wasley et al.). Without leaving Brazil, three companies process five billion dollars worth

of beef. With how many parts of a supply chain can include beef, it is most likely worth even

more, while being sold globally. In the same article, it states “More than 2,000 hectares of forest

were apparently destroyed on a single ranch between 2018 and 2021… which sold nearly 500

cattle to JBS” (Wasley et al.). With two thousand hectares being twenty square kilometers, a

large piece of the forest would’ve been destroyed. That land would be used to increase the

capacity of cattle that can be housed which would be sold to a processor. With five hundred cattle

being sold the ranch would be making a large amount of money from the sale.

However, these problems are not able to be easily solved. With the amount of

deforestation happening because of the beef industry, governments and companies that have

relations with governments and farms causing deforestation are the only groups that can try and
 Kszepka 3

stop the problem, individuals can do very little. One of the few ways a person can help is by

avoiding food waste. The less uneaten food a person disposes of and instead donates can help

reduce the amount of food being bought and potentially the amount being produced. In “Food

Savers or Food Saviors? Food Waste, Food Recovery Networks, and Food Justice” by Leda

Cooks found in From Inquiry to Academic Writing a Text and Reader she brings up “the amount

of food wasted around the world estimated at 40% of food supply” (771). While not talking

about specifically beef or cattle industry it can help provide insight into the amount of food being

wasted. As stated previously, a farm in Brazil sold five hundred cattle, if only that was the entire

supply of food globally, two hundred of them would be thrown out. Luckily, governments and

companies are working to stop importing and selling beef linked to deforestation. Andrew

Wasley et al. bring up in their article “[r]egulations adopted in April mean products brought into

the EU cannot be linked to any deforestation that happened after December 2020” as well as

“Lidl and Aldi said they stopped selling Brazilian beef in 2021 and 2022 respectively” (Wasley et

al.). The EU creating that regulation has made it so almost thirty countries are unable to import

not only beef but any product that has directly caused deforestation since the beginning of 2021.

It is important to note that products that caused deforestation before 2021 are still allowed, so it

prevents more harm rather than trying to revert the damage. Aldi and Lidl are both large

international stores, so having both of them halt the selling of Brazilian beef entirely is huge.

There are still companies and countries that do import Brazilian beef, including beef that came

from deforestation, but with the entirety of the EU and two large stores in multiple countries, it is

at least helping with the problem even if the problem still exists.

For the most part, deforestation caused by the beef industry is only a small portion of a

much larger issue, but with how much damage it is causing it should not be taken lightly. It is a
 Kszepka 4

great thing to see companies and nations fighting back against the problem, and with ways

individuals can help, the issue while it won’t go away can become a much smaller problem.
 Kszepka 5

Works Cited

Cooks, Leda. “Food Savers or Food Saviors.” From Inquiry to Academic Writing a Text and

Reader, edited by Stuart Green and April Lidinsky, Macmillan Learning, 2021, 771-785

Lappe, Anna. “The Climate Crisis at the End of Our Fork.” From Inquiry to Academic Writing a

Text and Reader, edited by Stuart Green and April Lidinsky, Macmillan Learning, 2021,

751-760

Wasley, Andrew. “More Than 800m Amazon Trees Felled in Six Years to Meet Beef Demand.”

The Guardian, 2 June 2023, www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/02/more-than-

800m-amazon-trees-felled-in-six-years-to-meet-beef-demand.