Understand the challenges of cattle ranching in the biome known as Brazil’s cradle of waters

The Cerrado feeds eight of Brazil’s twelve hydrographic regions, and it was there that cattle ranching expanded fastest over the past decade. Data from Do Pasto ao Prato show how the conversion of native vegetation into pasture is concentrated precisely where cattle traceability is weakest, in the municipalities that supply the country’s largest meatpackers.

The conversion of native vegetation into pasture remains concentrated in municipalities where cattle traceability is weakest. In transition areas, pasture advances over the savanna formations that feed the headwaters of entire river basins, and the effect is not confined to the biome: part of the water that supplies the Southeast and the Northeast of the country rises there.

App data show that a significant share of the products scanned in state capitals comes from processing plants that buy from municipalities with deforestation alerts in the period under review. Scanning at the point of sale is what makes it possible to link the package to the plant that processed it, and from there to that plant’s network of suppliers.