Brazilian companies and slaughterhouses including the world’s largest meat producer, JBS, sourced cattle from supplier farms that made use of workers kept in slavery-like conditions, according to a new report. Since 1995, the report said, 55,000 Brazilian workers have been rescued by government inspectors from “situations similar to slavery”. The report challenges meat companies such as JBS, which has faced criticism over its inability to control its supply chains of cattle farms in the Amazon. The three companies signed a deal in 2009 with Greenpeace in which they agreed not to buy cattle from farms “engaged in slavery”. Similar deals signed with federal prosecutors stopped them buying from farms included on a rolling government “dirty list” for keeping workers in slavery-like conditions.

Source: The Guardian January 06, 2021 13:08 UTC