Brazil is the world’s largest exporter of meat. Its exports account for 39% of the global total and reach more than 150 countries. Behind this is a massive meat industry, and in beef and chicken production Brazil currently ranks second in the world after the United States. Since 1960, Brazil’s meat production has more than tripled, a rise supported by the increasing demand for meat both domestically and internationally.

At the same time, serious problems have arisen around the production and export of this meat, spanning a wide range of issues including human rights violations against workers, collusion between corporations and the government, and deforestation.

This article first examines the background that enabled Brazil’s meat industry to grow large enough to boast the world’s highest export volume, and then looks at the problems that have emerged alongside that growth.

Brazilian meat sold at a butcher shop in the UK (Photo: Matt Brown / Flickr [CC BY 2.0])

Development of the meat industry

What, fundamentally, lies behind the surge in livestock production in Brazil? The main factors are the rising demand for meat at home and abroad, and a government program to support meat-processing companies.

First, consider the increase in domestic demand for meat. Brazil’s population has grown from 95 million to 212 million over the past 50 years, and demand for meat has risen in step with that population growth. Per capita meat consumption has also increased. As experts have noted that higher-income countries tend to consume more meat per person, per capita meat consumption in Brazil has likely grown alongside economic development.

Demand for meat is also rising outside Brazil. According to 2018 data, global meat consumption increased by 58% from 1998 to 2018, reaching 360 million tons in 2018. This global rise in demand is influenced by population growth, higher incomes, urbanization, and other effects of economic development.

To meet growing global demand for meat, in 2018 alone Brazil recorded the world’s largest export volume, shipping 1.64 million tons of beef, an 11% increase year-on-year. The following year, 2019, saw exports of 1.82 million tons of beef, and exports have continued on an upward trend since. Countries in Asia, notably China, are among the main importers of Brazilian meat. For example, China accounted for about 45% of Brazil’s total beef exports in 2019.

Giant multinationals

Key actors supporting Brazil’s meat boom include giant Brazilian multinationals such as JBS and BRF (Brazil Foods). Among them, JBS, the world’s largest meat processor, employs more than 90,000 people worldwide and, as of 2019, posted annual revenues of US$50 billion. In the early 2000s, when JBS was still a family-run small company, Brazil’s meat and feed grain industries were dominated by American and European multinationals. Within just a generation, Brazilian multinationals entered the global meat market. JBS, for example, began in 1953 as a family-run meat processor in the midwestern city of Anápolis. A few years later, the company moved to Brazil’s new capital, Brasília, where a slaughterhouse was established to supply meat to the workers building the city.

How did this small family butcher founded in 1953 become the world’s largest meat exporter by 2005? The move to Brasília was one catalyst, but acquisitions of other companies and government support were also major factors. JBS pursued a series of acquisitions of slaughterhouses and processing plants and, in 2007, went public. At that time, aiming to strengthen national power through livestock, the Brazilian government launched a project to support Brazilian companies: the “National Champions” policy. This became the springboard that propelled JBS into a giant multinational.

This “National Champions” policy for meat companies was implemented by the Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES) from 2007 to 2013. Its objective was to foster large multinationals within Brazil that would generate substantial domestic revenue. Beneficiaries included not only Brazilian meat processors but also oil and mining companies; among major meat processors, JBS, BRF, and Marfrig were selected. Under this policy, the government provided subsidized loans to target companies and, through the BNDES investment arm, purchased their corporate bonds and shares.

Companies that received government financing expanded through mergers and acquisitions. Take JBS as an example. In 2007, BNDES made its first investment in JBS, equivalent to about US$580 million, accelerating international acquisitions as JBS bought up meat-processing businesses throughout the Americas. It subsequently acquired Moy Park, a major poultry company in Northern Ireland, and Pilgrim’s Pride in the United States. In 2009, BNDES made a further investment equivalent to US$2 billion. Following the “National Champions” policy, JBS rapidly became the world’s largest meat producer and exporter.

Thus, Brazil’s meat industry grew dramatically, and multinationals expanded their market reach. At the same time, multiple problems have emerged. One of them is the working conditions of farm laborers.

A JBS joint congressional inquiry committee set up in Brazil’s Congress (Photo: Agência Senado / Flickr [CC BY 2.0])

Modern slavery

Alongside government support programs, another factor behind Brazil’s global push in the meat industry is its low production costs. A 2025 survey ranked Brazil 62nd worldwide in terms of beef price levels. While such low prices are possible, the exploitation of cheap labor on farms has become a serious issue. A stark example is what is sometimes called “modern slavery.”

Modern slavery refers to people forced to work under conditions that involve physical and mental suffering, excessive hours, and unsanitary environments. Many are indebted to their employers or are unable to return to their hometowns for economic or political reasons. Most affected workers in Brazil are domestic migrants. They leave their homes in search of work on farmland, or are recruited by labor brokers known as “guests,” who conceal the true working conditions.

How many workers are in conditions described as “modern slavery”? In 1995, the federal government of Brazil officially acknowledged to domestic and international labor organizations (ILO) the existence of contemporary slave labor. According to the 2023 Global Slavery Index released by the Minderoo Foundation, over 1 million cases of forced labor and forced marriage have been identified. Research by the NGO Repórter Brasil indicates that 60% of recorded “slave labor” cases in Brazil are in the cattle ranching sector.

Farm owners who impose “slave labor” are prosecuted under Brazil’s criminal code, but the number of workers reviewed and freed by the government is limited. Of the workers reported between 1995 and 2020, only 31% have been freed to date. Moreover, many instances of “modern slavery” go unreported. Today in Brazil, the number of inspections of rural working conditions has dropped dramatically, and the lack of adequate monitoring of those being forced to work has been highlighted.

A ranch in Brazil (Photo: Vicente Bissoni Neto / Wikimedia Commons [CC BY-SA 4.0])

One reason inspections are so difficult is that forced labor sites are inherently hard to detect. Much of the “slave labor” in the livestock sector is found not on farms that process and supply animals, but on separate farms that fatten the animals before they are sent to those suppliers. In such cases, experts note that it is difficult to identify the fattening operations where forced labor takes place and hold them accountable.

Food safety and political opacity

The problems in Brazil’s meat industry affect not only workers but also consumers. Behind them lies collusion between major corporations and the government.

In March 2017, investigations by Brazil’s federal police revealed that JBS, the world’s largest meat exporter, had distributed beef, pork, and chicken contaminated with Salmonella both domestically and internationally. Numerous cases of Salmonella contamination were found across beef, pork, and chicken, and export markets including China, the European Union (EU), Japan, and Mexico considered or implemented bans.

Over several years it emerged that JBS had bribed meat inspectors and government officials to overlook meat contamination. To avoid accountability for other activities intended to expand and protect its business, including insider trading, large sums in bribes were also paid to many government officials. For example, according to a JBS whistleblower, bribes were paid to 1,829 politicians, totaling about US$250 million.

Brothers Joesley Batista and Wesley Batista, who run JBS, were both arrested for insider trading in 2017 but were released after about six months. The scandal underscored the risks to consumer safety and the vulnerability of consumers posed by collusion between the government and major corporations.

A meat inspector examines samples of JBS products (Photo: Agência Brasília / Flickr [CC BY 2.0])

Deforestation

Brazil’s meat industry also raises environmental concerns. Raising animals for meat requires vast tracts of land for pasture and for growing feed crops. The result is deforestation. Cattle grazing in Brazil is considered a primary driver of carbon emissions from deforestation. In the Amazon’s tropical regions, 80% of deforestation is attributed to the conversion of land for agriculture, including cropland, pasture, and rangeland.

Deforestation is not only for cattle fattening. As livestock numbers grow, demand for feed also rises, requiring farms to grow soy and other grains. In fact, in Brazil’s central Cerrado region, the area used to grow soy increased from 7.5 million hectares in 2000–2001 to 18.2 million hectares in 2018–2019, an increase of 10.7 million hectares.

How does deforestation affect the environment and people? One way is through fires used to clear forests for livestock. There are reports that about 90% of fires in Brazil are linked to ranching.

Such deforestation not only drives climate change but also violates the homelands of the roughly one million Indigenous people living in the Amazon. Between August 2018 and July 2019, 42,600 hectares were deforested on Indigenous lands in the region, a 174% increase over the 2008–2018 average.

Large-scale deforestation for livestock is occurring in Brazil, and many cases are illegal. Although Brazil designates zones where deforestation is prohibited, illegal land clearing and conversion to farms still occur. Cattle raised on land illegally cleared of forest have been sold by major Brazilian multinationals such as JBS. However, exposing and holding large companies accountable for selling cattle raised on illegal land is difficult.

Deforestation for livestock (Photo: Carina Furlanetto / Shutterstock.com)

A key mechanism behind this is known as “cow laundering.” Laundering means “to clean,” and “cow laundering” plays on “money laundering.” In short, cattle born on farms that illegally clear forest are moved to farms where clearing is legal to make them appear “clean,” obscuring their origin before sale.

Here is how cow laundering works in practice. In 2022, prosecutors announced that JBS had purchased more than 85,000 head of cattle from illegally deforested farms. Because the Brazilian government and the EU often inspect only the “final suppliers (direct counterparts),” companies can claim they have neither the authority nor the obligation to trace beyond their “direct suppliers,” thereby arguing they are not responsible for earlier links in the chain. JBS has promised for years to resolve this issue but has not delivered. Similar cow laundering practices have been observed at other companies, such as Marfrig.

Summary

As we have seen, Brazil boasts one of the world’s largest agro-livestock sectors, underpinned by government development support and the growth of multinationals. In particular, companies like JBS and BRF have grown rapidly with government financing and now dominate global markets. Yet behind this growth lie grave issues: modern slavery, food safety risks, corruption and collusion with government, and environmental destruction. The multinationals that dominate the meat industry have evaded responsibility through bribery and “cow laundering.”

Nor is this solely a domestic problem for Brazil. Meat from the world’s largest exporter is consumed across the globe. It demands global attention.

Writer: Nishimura Yoshine

Graphics: Ayane Ishida

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