Large-scale sustainable beef is still an empty promise

Earlier this month, an international coalition of beef-producing megacorporations put forth a document they say will guide their industry towards raising more sustainable beef. But though the language of the document is lofty, industry experts accuse it of being all talk and no game.

In August, MUNCHIES took a look at the then-upcoming Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef (GRSB), the group of major beef producers that includes Cargill, Tyson, and JBS in the US and Marfrig in Brazil. The corporations planned to convene on one very important issue: how to keep up with the increasing global demand for beef without completely depleting the resources that cattle-raising depends on. Food giants McDonald’s and Walmart also said they’d get in on the action, and earlier this month, this group of food industry titans finally assembled in São Paolo to discuss sustainable beef. As a result of the conference, the group of shareholders released a lengthy document, its “Principles and Criteria,” which outlines a set of goals for the global beef industry that, when followed, will supposedly address the social, environmental, and economic consequences of raising about 63 million tons of beef per year.

Large-scale sustainable beef is still an empty promise

-VICE 12/1/2014