The Brazilian Confederation of Agriculture and Livestock (CNA), the Sustainable Trade Initiative (IDH), and the Carrefour Brazil Group launched on Tuesday (29) a tool to support the traceability of Brazilian cattle production, from calves to final consumers, with inclusion, transparency, and data protection.
The idea is to offer technological solutions to fasten the implementation of more sustainable models in livestock production, ensuring that consumers are aware of the social and environmental attributes of beef cattle products. The protocol establishes a set of procedures that provides guidelines for socially and environmentally responsible calf breeding, which begins at birth and continues until the last farm before slaughter. It can be applied to cattle farms in all Brazilian biomes.
“The entire process is audited by the third-party certification company, TÜV Rheinland, bringing more security, exemption, and transparency to the protocol,” says the coordinator of the Traceability Protocols of CNA Institute, Paulo Costa.
“We are talking about something that has never been done on this dimension and format, considering the vision of the Brazilian farmers to understand what is viable and possible to be done daily. It is a call from the countryside to the market,” explains Daniela Mariuzzo, Executive Director of IDH Brazil and the Sustainable Landscapes Program in Latin America. “This project can place Brazil as a leader in livestock production tracked by blockchain,” she adds.
Successful stories
The Protocol was developed based on the successful experience of the Calf Sustainable Production Program, developed since 2019 in Mato Grosso, with funding from IDH, the Carrefour Group, and the Carrefour Foundation.
The goal for 2022 is to provide technical, financial, and environmental assistance to 557 producers, totaling more than 190 thousand head of cattle, 210 thousand hectares of pastures, and about 188 thousand hectares of preserved areas in the Amazon, Cerrado, and Pantanal biomes in Mato Grosso.
As a result of this initiative, in July 2021, the first batch of 100% deforestation-free beef was sold, tracked from the calves’ birth to the supermarket shelf, and, most importantly, at an affordable price. The product was made available in one of Carrefour Group’s popular stores in São Paulo, to confirm the fact that sustainability does not need to be expensive.
“It is very important that the consumer knows about the origin of the products purchased; after all, we endorse what we consume. Whenever we decide on any product, we are also agreeing with the ideologies, values, and practices of a particular company. And for us quality is something non-negotiable,” says Stéphane Engelhard, Vice President of Institutional Relations of the Carrefour Group Brazil.