Leading burger supplier sourced from Amazon farmer using deforested land

Reporting team: Andrew Wasley, Alexandra Heal and André Campos in São Paulo

The world’s biggest supplier of burgers sourced meat from a farmer in the Amazon who had been found guilty of using deforested land, say reports, even as new figures reveal the beef industry’s deforestation risks.

Marfrig, a Brazilian meat company that has supplied McDonald’s, Burger King and other fast-food chains around the world, bought cattle from a farm that had been using deforested land earlier this year, according to a joint investigation by Repórter Brasil and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.

The company said it was misled by a government certificate that cleared the farm of deforestation, and it has since ended the association. Marfrig has recently launched an environment “transition bond” to tap into the growing sustainable investment market.

In January, inspectors from Ibama, Brazil’s environmental watchdog, found cattle from Limeira Ranch grazing on illegally deforested land inside a protected region, the Triunfo do Xingu environmental protection area in Pará state. The region has been devastated by forest fires this year.

The part of the farm where the cattle were found had been placed under an official embargo — which…