21st Century Slaves

In addition to food safety, environmental and trade concerns, Brazilian beef carries weighty moral issues. In order to provide enough space for grazing cattle, slave labourers are cutting down Brazilian rainforests. Housed in plastic,roofed shacks and toiling with crude tools, workers brought in from poor areas in northeast Brazil are often not paid or given medical assistance. They are being brutalised, chained to trees — even shot. Promised high wages, they are often left with nothing after their food rations are deducted from their pay.

The problem is so well documented that even Brazil‚ government calls the people slaves. The country‚ Anti,Slavery Enforcement Team, established to find some of the world‚ last true slaves, freed 11,946 of these forced labourers from 2000,04.

Duff Burrell, chair of the UK‚ National Beef Association, said beef produced under these conditions is likely being consumed in Europe. ‚There is a fair chance that some of the beef from the areas deforested by slaves will be going to the catering trade, he said. ‚Even if the beef you buy has not seen a slave, the extra production in the deforested areas allows the export of the other stuff.”

According to the group, DNA tests on meat from Ireland, Scotland and Wales revealed some of it came from Brahmin cattle, which is grown only in the tropics.¹⁶