The Role of High-Volume Ranches as Cattle Suppliers: Supply Chain Connections and Cattle Production in Mato Grosso

Raquel Carvalho, Lisa Rausch, Jacob Munger and Holly K. Gibbs
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Raquel Carvalho: Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment (SAGE), Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53726, USA
Lisa Rausch: Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment (SAGE), Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53726, USA
Jacob Munger: Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment (SAGE), Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53726, USA
Holly K. Gibbs: Department of Geography, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA

Land, 2021, vol. 10, issue 10, 1-12

Abstract: Brazil’s zero-deforestation Cattle Agreements (CAs) have influenced the supply chain but their impact on deforestation has been limited in part because slaughterhouses monitor deforestation only on the properties they buy from directly. Consequently, deforestation continues to enter the supply chain indirectly from properties that are not monitored. Knowledge gaps and data limitations have made it challenging to close this loophole and achieve meaningful reductions in deforestation. Here we leverage our large property-level supply chain database that links together six years of records from the Animal Transport Guide (GTA), high-resolution satellite data, property boundaries, and land cover data to quantify different types of supply chain connections and characterize cattle production in Mato Grosso. We find that a relatively small number of high-volume suppliers—defined as the top 5% of cattle suppliers in terms of the volume of cattle sold–supplied 50–60% of the total volume purchased by major slaughterhouses. One-fourth of high-volume direct suppliers cleared forest between 2009–2018, and 90% of them also bought from indirect suppliers with deforestation, leading these high-volume direct suppliers to act as funnels for deforestation into the supply chain. Because they serve as important hubs in the supply chain, high-volume suppliers may represent a key starting point to expand the CAs to cover large numbers of indirect suppliers.

Keywords: cattle supply chain; Amazon; deforestation; high-volume cattle suppliers (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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