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While it brings socio-environmental gains, the increasing demands for sustainability in meat production also present a challenge for rural producers, who need to adapt quickly to new production rules to meet, especially, the demand from foreign markets.
The scenario is complex due to both the heterogeneity of Brazilian producers, with various sizes and configurations, and the sheer continental dimension of the country, which encompasses a wide range of climatic specificities, according to each biome, culture, and even the legal and regulatory frameworks.
A heterogeneous sector, with a predominance of small and medium-sized producers
About 30% of the beef produced in Brazil is exported, making the country the largest global exporter of the commodity, according to data from the Brazilian Association of Meat Exporting Industries (Abiec).
However, while many farms already invest in sustainable measures, such as the practice of Crop-Livestock-Forestry Integration (ILPF), not all are advanced on this front.
In his participation in the event “Governance and Sustainability in the Beef Chain,” promoted by the Brazilian Center for Institutional Relations (Cebri), Marcos Jank, Professor of Global Agribusiness at Insper and coordinator of Insper Agro Global, explained the scenario by citing the heterogeneity of the beef production chain in Brazil, with farms of various sizes and profiles.
Complementing this, João Paulo Franco Silveira, coordinator of the animal production area at the Confederation of Agriculture and Livestock of Brazil (CNA) and former rural entrepreneur, highlighted the fact that about 70% of agricultural properties in the country are less than 50 hectares, meaning they are small or medium-sized. According to him, smaller-scale rural producers have much more difficulty complying with the new sustainability-related rules than larger ones.
A study by Embrapa Territorial, based on data from the Rural Environmental Registry (CAR) and the 2017 Agricultural Census, identifies that areas dedicated to the preservation of native vegetation on Brazilian rural properties total 282.8 million hectares, which corresponds to 33.2% of the national territory.
Traceability is the most pressing challenge
Brazil has a cattle herd of 238.2 million animals, according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE). Of this total, according to Forbes’ findings, approximately 4 million animals are registered in the Brazilian System for Individual Identification of Cattle and Buffaloes (SISBOV), which represents only 2% of the herd.
The European Union Regulation on Deforestation-Free Products (EUDR), which prohibits the import and sale of, among others, meat without guarantees that it was not produced in deforested areas, challenges Brazil to reverse this situation. As the EUDR requires European companies to conduct due diligence to prove the legality and origin of products, robust tracking mechanisms are necessary.
To this end, the National Plan for Individual Identification of Cattle and Buffaloes (PNIB) was created in December 2024, establishing the mandatory “tagging” and individual identification of cattle throughout the country—a change aimed at making the herd traceable from birth to slaughter indication. The planned implementation is progressive, with states and producers having until 2032 to achieve full traceability.
This strict timeline represents a technical and financial obstacle for many small and medium-sized producers.
The cost per head for electronic tags, chips, radio frequency systems, or other tracking technologies can strain the budget of those working with modest herds. Furthermore, many producers lack the infrastructure for collecting, feeding, and transmitting georeferenced data, system integration, or constant digital connectivity. The absence of local technical support makes the adoption curve steeper.
Moreover, the requirement extends beyond the final links. That is, it is not limited to the farms immediately supplying slaughterhouses, broadening the scope of those at the forefront, who, if unable to prove traceability or the environmental integrity of their lot, risk having their product rejected in premium markets. This creates uncertainty regarding the return on investment in tracking systems.
Land regularization is a foundational challenge
“The cadastral aspect of land bases is very important for the advancement of sustainability policies. As long as we have an undefined land network and undefined property rights, the incentives around sustainability become weaker.” This statement by Guilherme Bastos, coordinator of the Agribusiness Study Center at Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV), at the Cebri event, shows that the challenges begin with the registration of rural properties.
The country still lacks an effectively validated, transparent, and interoperable registry, which is an essential condition for it to fulfill its role as a command and control instrument, as well as a reliable basis for traceability policies, environmental compensation, and emissions monitoring.
Created by the 2012 Forest Code (Law No. 12.651/2012), the CAR is a mandatory, free, electronic public registry for all rural properties in Brazil. It compiles environmental information about rural properties and possessions, such as Areas of Permanent Preservation (APPs), Legal Reserves, areas of restricted use, native vegetation, and consolidated areas, with the aim of enabling monitoring, environmental planning, and combating deforestation.
Although it is one of the country’s main environmental management tools, it faces structural bottlenecks. According to the Brazilian Forest Service (SFB) in October 2025 data, over 8 million rural properties are already registered, which represents more than the total number of active properties in the Federal Revenue’s Rural Property Registry (Cafir). However, only about 3.3% of registrations have had their analysis completed, according to data from the “Radiografia do CAR e do PRA nos Estados Brasileiros 2024” (Radiography of CAR and PRA in Brazilian States 2024).
Furthermore, as the CAR is declarative, it depends on the veracity of the information provided by the owner. The absence of real-time checks and systematic cross-referencing with satellite data and land registries allows for inconsistencies, overlaps, and even fraudulent registrations, especially in the Legal Amazon.
To minimize this risk, there is the Project for Monitoring Deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon Forest by Satellite (Prodes). The system developed by the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) uses satellite imagery to generate the official annual deforestation rate in the Brazilian Legal Amazon. But it faces flaws.
According to Marta Giannichi, Minerva Foods’ global director of Sustainability and of MyCarbon—a Minerva subsidiary decarbonization company focused on carbon credits—significant advancements are needed for Prodes to differentiate legal from illegal deforestation, making it challenging to identify what is actually happening.
Another challenge lies in the integration of the CAR with traceability and environmental regularization policies. Without definitive validation, the registry does not serve as full environmental proof, limiting its use for certifications, granting rural credit, and exporting products to markets with stricter requirements, such as the European Union.
Legislative initiatives in progress aim to reduce some of these structural gaps. The bill addressing land regularization (PL 510/2021) aims to grant property titles that allow for the identification and legal accountability of owners for any environmental law violations. Meanwhile, PL 2159/2021, which proposes the modernization of environmental licensing, focuses on adapting processes to the digital reality and new remote monitoring technologies, making the analysis of projects more agile without reducing technical rigor.
Both projects address the same structuring challenge highlighted by Bastos: the consolidation of a solid land and regulatory base capable of integrating information, ownership, and environmental responsibility into a truly functional system.
A viable transition depends on financing
For the transition to be viable, many experts advocate for the state to offer credit lines, subsidies, or technical support. Silveira is among them. For the former rural producer, government initiatives regarding sustainability for producers are good, but still not comprehensive enough. “The ABC Plan is undoubtedly the largest program within the Safra Plan, where rural producers take credit to invest in sustainability. But is it sufficient? No, it is not,” he argued.
The Safra Plan is a set of federal government public policies that offer credit and incentives to support agricultural production, facilitating, for example, financing operating costs and investing in machinery. But, as Bastos pointed out, “it represents only one-third of what the sector actually needs.”
Marta believes that incentive policies or training programs involving farms that invest in sustainability can contribute. She cited the Renove Program, from Minerva Foods, as an example of producer incentive—an initiative with producers to promote low-carbon cattle farming and regenerative practices.
Successful cases from the program have shown that challenges also bring opportunities. Producers who manage to overcome barriers and lead the transition to an increasingly sustainable, efficient, resilient, and responsible sector also measure gains, such as increased competitiveness, access to new markets, cost reduction, risk mitigation, and gains in productivity and profitability, in line with the future.
Reference sources:
Boas práticas na agropecuária contribuem para reduzir impacto ambiental
Brasil bate recorde nas exportações de carne bovina em 2024
Desafios e perspectivas da agricultura: entre a crise e a sustentabilidade
Governança na Sustentabilidade da Cadeia da Carne Bovina