Destruction of the Amazon Linked to British Chickens

British chickens are destroying the Amazon. Seara, a subsidiary of the US food business JBS, provides chicken to British shops, hospitals, and educational institutions.

(Photo : Want to build a chicken house? Here's everything you need!)

According to a recent analysis, chicken sold in British shops has a connection to Amazon deforestation.

British Chicken Invaders

According to the report, deforested areas in the Amazon and Cerrado are linked to the suppliers of maize and soybeans used to feed hens produced by JBS, the largest meat producer in the world and a US food processing corporation.

JBS sells Brazilian beef, pig, and poultry to businesses worldwide, including the Middle East, Europe, and China.

Over the past three years, Seara goods, a JBS subsidiary, have been imported into the UK and sold to wholesalers, food service, and processing firms that provide supermarkets, schools, hospitals, and care facilities.

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Large-Scale Chicken Providers

Seara Chicken supplies some of the world's biggest supermarkets and fast-food chains with more than five million birds each day from its Brazilian poultry farms.

This is the first time chicken produced in Brazil and shipped to the UK has been connected to deforestation, according to the joint study by Reporter Brasil and Ecostorm, released on Thursday.

This analysis demonstrates that the purchase practices now in use have blind spots and still fall short of eliminating the grain laundering techniques, it was stated.

JBS responded by stating to Reporter Brasil that it has strict requirements for its grain suppliers, including that they adhere to the soy moratorium, which prohibits selling soy harvested on land cleared of trees after 2008.

Deforestation in the Amazon

(Photo : Evaristo Sa/AFP via Getty Images)

The first half of 2022 saw unprecedented deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon; it was 80% more than the corresponding time in 2018, the year before President Jair Bolsonaro's inauguration. This is based on research from the Brazilian NGO IPAM, which researches the Amazon.

According to IPAM, combined with unlawful real estate and wood transactions, a lack of enforcement, and around half of the felling took place on the public territory.

The Amazon is not protected, according to Ane Alencar, the science director at IPAM. In the modern Amazon, the standing forest has little value.

Companies Failing to be Sustainable

Despite promising to reduce their carbon footprint as part of broader efforts to combat climate change, most large corporations are neglecting to acknowledge the harm their activities are causing to forests, according to a research released in 2019.

Consumers want to know that their purchases aren't contributing to the extinction of the orangutan, the destruction of the Amazon, or the climate crisis, she said in a statement.

CDP has emerged as a leading voice in a larger push by investors seeking disclosure from companies on the risks they may face as global warming exposes them to extreme weather, supply chain failure, and other forms of disruption.

According to CDP, some businesses refused to answer their queries on trees, saying they were dedicated to increased sustainability.