JBS says Greenpeace information is wrong
20/10/2011
Using information from the federal government in Brazil, Greenpeace said on October 19 that JBS had, during the first five months of this year, sourced cattle from farms that use illegally deforested land or land reserved for indigenous peoples to graze livestock. The farms in question are in the state of Mato Grosso.
Greenpeace has campaigned since 2009 for packers and tanners to source no cattle from such farms and has circulated negative publicity about consumer products brands that buy leather from the Brazilian firms it has implicated.
JBS has issued a statement in response saying that neither Greenpeace nor the federal government have checked their facts. It claimed it has paid to monitor the exact co-ordinates of farms in the state of Mato Grosso from which it buys cattle because farmers and the state authorities had failed to pass on the information. None of these farms infringes indigenous peoples’ land, it said.
Some farms listed in information from the government about illegally deforested land, which Greenpeace has now seized upon, appear nowhere on its supplier lists and JBS says it has never done business with any of them. In the case of 13 farms on the lists, it said it had sourced livestock from them in the past, but not since the farms appeared on a government banned list. There is one case that JBS is continuing to analyse, on which it says there is still a lack of clear information.
“This is a clear indication that the information the government has looked at, and that non-governmental organisations have publicised, has not been checked,” JBS said, “leaving these bodies to draw incorrect conclusions.”
The company has insisted that it is carrying out strict controls of its raw material sourcing, follows a rigorous sustainability policy, monitors its suppliers and rejects any practices that harm the environment or people.
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