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The climate strategy has ceased to be a reputational differentiator and has become an entry criterion in the international trade of beef. In an environment where environmental requirements advance over contracts, regulations and consumer preferences, proving origin, traceability and emissions control has become a condition to access markets and remain in them.
In this new scenario, experts and industry leaders demonstrate how climate management has ceased to be an ancillary cost and ESG has come to operate as a filter. Those who cannot demonstrate compliance tend to lose ground for failing to meet minimum entry requirements. The consequence is a structural change: beef stops being treated solely as a commodity and begins to incorporate environmental attributes as part of its value and competitiveness.
For Minerva Foods and MyCarbon’s global Sustainability director, Marta Giannichi, the change is structural. She points out that about 98% of emissions in the beef supply chain come from so-called scope 3, specifically enteric methane. In this context, the adoption of intensification technologies—such as pasture recovery and rotation and the use of feed additives—becomes part of a market strategy by reducing the production cycle and the emissions per kilogram of meat.
Differentiation by market
International pressure is not homogeneous and this difference reorganizes the Brazilian strategy.
In the European Union, the criterion is regulatory. The Anti-Deforestation Law (EUDR) requires proof that production is not associated with environmental harm, according to the EUDR guidelines. Without validated traceability, there is no access. “Traceability becomes a decisive factor for competitiveness and market access,” Marta Giannichi says.
In China, the movement follows a different logic. The country prioritizes food safety, but is advancing in incorporating quality and governance criteria. Initiatives such as paying premiums for younger slaughtered animals show how production efficiency and emissions reduction are beginning to converge with economic incentives. This year China began a quota policy prioritizing partners that demonstrate stability and commitments to “Low-Carbon Livestock,” according to a report published in the China Daily.
João Paulo Franco Silveira, coordinator of Animal Production at the Confederation of Agriculture and Livestock of Brazil (CNA), addresses the role of economic incentives in this process. He cites differentiated remuneration for slaughtering animals before 36 months of age as an example of how productivity gains and climate targets begin to move together. In practice, the measure speeds herd turnover and reduces lifetime emissions per animal. “About 70% of livestock farmers have properties up to 50 hectares. For these producers to join this dynamic, it is essential to provide technical assistance and accessible credit,” he says.
This scenario creates a dual requirement: meet formal barriers, such as in the European case, and at the same time capture value in markets that are starting to incorporate environmental criteria as a competitive differential.
Incentives for producers and capacity to respond
Experts indicate that responding to this new standard depends less on isolated solutions and more on coordination across the chain.
In the field, the adoption of sustainable practices still faces structural limitations. In the industry, traceability consolidates as an axis of connection between production and market, functioning both as an environmental and a sanitary tool. “Individual traceability is also an instrument of sanitary defense,” João Paulo says, highlighting its role in building international trust.
Beyond regulatory requirements, the advance of these practices is also driven by economic incentives. In different markets, producers who can shorten the production cycle, recover degraded areas or prove lower emission intensity gain access to specific lines of credit, technical support programs and differentiated remuneration.
At the institutional level, public policies are beginning to structure this transition. For Guilherme Bastos, coordinator of the Agribusiness Studies Center at Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV), instruments such as the Plano ABC+ and Renovagro are central to enable pasture recovery without area expansion.
The Renovagro program offers financing conditions for low-carbon technologies, including recovery of degraded pastures, integrated crop-livestock-forest systems (ILPF), planted forests and sustainable management. The Plano ABC+ serves as the main national strategy to expand low-emission agriculture through 2030. In addition, Bill 4417/2023 proposes an incentive program focused on small livestock farmers, with accessible technical assistance and specific credit lines for those who want to adopt sustainable practices at lower interest rates. The goal is to prevent new global requirements from causing social exclusion in rural areas, allowing small-scale producers to have financial support to adapt their activities and increase competitiveness.
In the private sector, programs like Minerva Foods’ Renove also work in this direction by supporting producers in adopting sustainable practices, providing technical assistance and encouraging improvements in productivity and environmental management on farms.
However, there are bottlenecks that must be overcome. “The absence of structured official data prevents Brazil from demonstrating that it already meets sustainable production targets,” Bastos warns. “Lack of transparency and obstacles in land regularization still hinder full monitoring and access to climate credit.”
Regulatory framework and data
In response to demands from producers and experts, the Brazilian government has been working on initiatives that structure data, facilitate credit and advance land regularization in order to make this transformation feasible at scale.
The National Plan for Individual Identification of Cattle and Buffalo (PNIB) foresees mandatory individual identification of the entire herd by 2032, creating the basis for traceability at scale. The process will be carried out gradually so that small and medium producers are not directly affected. Although the initial focus is sanitary, the measure aims to serve as a technological basis for the socio-environmental transparency required by the EUDR, allowing the monitoring of each animal’s journey from birth to slaughter.
The issue of land regularization, raised by the CNA’s coordinator of Animal Production, has been discussed through Bill 2633/2020, which addresses expanding the reach of regularization. The bill aims to streamline land titling to transform so-called “dead capital” (properties without legal title) into collateral for access to rural credit and definitive environmental compliance of properties.
From external requirement to market strategy
More than an adaptation agenda, the climate strategy comes to define the positioning of Brazilian beef in global trade. By integrating production, industry and public policy, the country not only responds to international demands but also competes in the market based on them.
In the current scenario, beyond producing more it is important to prove how production is carried out. This criterion defines who enters the international market, who remains and under what conditions.
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