The role of high-volume ranches as cattle suppliers: supply chain connections and cattle production in mato grosso
Open accessAbstract
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.
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The pattern of high-volume, long-lasting relationships is especially true for the largest suppliers, who also tend to have closer relationships with CA signatories.
“Similar to the findings of Carvalho et al (2021), we show this is especially true for the largest suppliers, who also tend to have closer relationships with CA signatories.”
From Cattle supply chain fidelity in the Brazilian Amazon: key considerations for deforestation monitoring (2024) · cites this paper as Carvalho et al (2021)
Section 3.1 reports that the suppliers selling to SIF slaughterhouses in all six study years were the largest contributors by volume, and that all SIF plants supplied by high-volume suppliers participated in CAs. But it does not establish that the largest suppliers generally had long-lasting or closer relationships with CA signatories: more than half of high-volume suppliers sold to a SIF plant in only one or two years, and only 40.6% sold exclusively to CA plants. (LLM, conf=0.84)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredA chief reason for the limited effect of the CA is that slaughterhouses monitor only the suppliers they buy from directly.
“Chief among the reasons for their limited effect is that slaughterhouses monitor only the suppliers they buy from directly.”
From Cattle supply chain fidelity in the Brazilian Amazon: key considerations for deforestation monitoring (2024) · cites this paper as Carvalho et al 2021
Previous work shows that high-volume direct suppliers play a key role in the supply chain.
“Previous work by Carvalho et al (2021) shows that high-volume direct suppliers play a key role in the supply chain, and we anticipate this will reflect in the strength of their relationships.”
From Cattle supply chain fidelity in the Brazilian Amazon: key considerations for deforestation monitoring (2024) · cites this paper as Carvalho et al (2021)
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- Authors
- Carvalho, R., Rausch, L., Munger, J., & Gibbs, H. K.
- Affiliations
- University of Wisconsin–Madison (US)
- Corresponding author
- Gibbs, Holly K.
- Venue
- Land
- Publisher
- MDPI AG
- Published
- 2021-10-16
- Volume
- 10
- Issue
- 10
- Pages
- 1098
- ISSN
- 2073-445X (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W3207967359
- Cited by
- 7
- References
- 17
- Citations by year
- 2025: 2 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 2
- FWCI
- 0.51
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Land (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (1810027)
- Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (706055)
- Meridian Institute (0251-S-001)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Oil Palm Production and Sustainability
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Agronomy and Crop Science › Livestock Farming and Management
- Keywords
- cattle supply chain, deforestation, slaughterhouses, cattle farming, Mato Grosso, land cover change, supply chain monitoring
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