Fresh evidence links deforestation, land grabbing, corruption, and violence against traditional communities in the Brazilian Cerrado to major soy exporters to the European Union (EU). Earthsight’s analysis shows that this tainted soy, used as animal feed in European chicken farms, enters the supply chains of fast-food giant McDonald’s and some of Europe’s largest supermarkets – Carrefour, Intermarché, Edeka and Albert Heijn – linking unwitting consumers to environmental and rights abuses overseas.  

The explosion of global soy production in recent decades has been at the expense of critical ecosystems and the communities who depend on them. Soy expansion is the second-biggest driver¹ of deforestation and land conversion across South America, responsible for the loss of 5 million hectares (ha) of native biomes between 2001 and 2015 in Brazil alone² – an area larger than the Netherlands. This comes at a severe cost to the climate: deforestation and conversion linked to the 2020 Brazilian soy harvest resulted in the release of 103 million tonnes of CO₂e³ – almost equal to the annual carbon emissions of Belgium.⁴  

Brazil is not only the world’s largest soy producer but also its top exporter. Seventy-eight per cent of what the country produces is exported,⁵ and Europe is its second-largest market.⁶ 

Most soy imported to Europe is processed into animal feed for the meat industry. Earthsight’s investigation exposes how tainted soy is exported to the EU by Bunge and Cargill before being processed into animal feed by European feed producers like De Heus. This animal feed is then purchased by Plukon Food Group and used to produce chicken sold in McDonald’s and in supermarkets across France, Germany and the Netherlands. Simply by doing their weekly grocery shopping, European consumers risk being complicit in deforestation, violence and land grabbing in the Brazilian Cerrado.

Neighbouring the Amazon rainforest and stretching across a quarter of Brazil⁹ lies one of the planet’s richest biomes: the Cerrado. A sprawling patchwork of grasslands, wetlands, savannahs and forests, its diverse ecosystems support 5 per cent¹⁰ of the world’s species and a third of Brazil’s biodiversity, providing home to many species found nowhere else on Earth.¹¹ The Cerrado is also home to 216 indigenous territories and supports a number of traditional communities who have inhabited the region for generations.¹² 

Thousands of hectares of native vegetation – part of which classified as forest by the EU Observatory – have also been cleared within Franciosi Agro properties in western Bahia after the EUDR’s cut-off date of 31 December 2020. In 2022 the group obtained authorisation from Inema to clear 2,543ha at its Grande Leste farm⁴¹ in São Desidério. Between March and July 2022, the NGO AidEnvironment detected 62 fire alerts and 1,928ha of cleared vegetation within the farm.⁴² Analysis of MapBiomas alerts confirms that by June 2023, 2,321ha of Cerrado vegetation had been cleared within Grande Leste.

To the north of Grande Leste lies the Santa Isabel farm complex, purchased by Franciosi Agro in 2020. It is made up of over 20 properties in the municipalities of Luis Eduardo Magalhães and Barreiras, with several of them sharing the same name or referred to in varying ways in different documents, making deforestation and illegalities harder to pinpoint.  

Between June and August 2021, 1,902ha of deforestation were detected on the Santa Isabel farm complex, including within protected areas known as legal reserves.⁴³ Legal reserves are areas within rural properties that producers are required to preserve under the Brazilian Forest Code.⁴⁴ According to the law, legal reserves in the Cerrado must make up at least 20 per cent of a farm’s total area.  

However, in 2021 agribusinesses in western Bahia successfully lobbied the local government to override the Brazilian Forest Code to allow them to clear legal reserves within their farms and relocate them to other areas, even if the original reserves were still pristine.⁴⁵ This effectively enabled them to deforest native Cerrado vegetation within their farms by shifting their conservation obligations to different areas altogether.⁴⁶ Although the regulation was revoked in 2022 following a legal challenge by the Bahia Public Prosecutor’s Office, these producers haven't been required by Inema to restore their legal reserves to their original locations.⁴⁷ As a result, the Bahia Public Prosecutor's Office has decided to open civil inquiries into several agribusinesses, including Franciosi Agro, which could end up obligating them to restore legal reserves within their farm boundaries in addition to preserving those they have established elsewhere.⁴⁸ 

“The Cerrado is made up of several ecosystems. When farms and their legal reserves are in different areas the preservation of those ecosystems most affected by large-scale farming – which tends to be concentrated where meadows were once abundant – is hampered,” says Marcos Rogério Beltrão dos Santos.

Earthsight’s undercover investigators found that the legal reserves for Santa Isabel’s farms are located 200 kilometres away from the properties, allowing Franciosi Agro to continue to grow soy on recently deforested areas within the complex, all while claiming to contribute to the Cerrado’s conservation.  

“Is it good for me to deforest here? Obviously it is, I concentrate my productive area in one place,” a Franciosi employee told Earthsight undercover investigators, explaining why they allocate their legal reserves to areas away from their farms. 

Deforestation on Santa Isabel has been a continuing trend for Franciosi Agro: a further 516ha were cleared there in February 2023 and another 715ha between April and May 2024. Both cases include deforestation non-compliant with Brazil’s Forest Code,^{49, 50} in violation of both the zero-deforestation and legality requirements of the EUDR. Between 2008 and 2022, Franciosi Agro was fined approximately BRL7.5 million (EUR1.25 million) by Ibama.⁵¹ Three of its farms have been embargoed for non-compliance with environmental law, restricting productive activity on these properties.⁵²  

In 2022 Franciosi Agro obtained authorisation to clear 1,999ha of native vegetation within Santa Isabel.⁵³ However, in 2023 a Franciosi Agro employee revealed to Earthsight undercover investigators that the group had recently cleared 5,000ha of vegetation at the farm complex – over double the area they would have had authorisation for at the time. Despite our best efforts, Earthsight has not been able to locate permits for the additional 3,000ha cleared within Santa Isabel.⁵⁴ Franciosi Agro did not respond to our questions about such permits.

The Horita Group has also had a hand in driving the loss of the Cerrado: between 2002 and 2019, Horita’s owners were fined nearly BRL22 million (EUR3.67 million) by Ibama due to environmental violations.⁵⁵ Inema found over 11,000ha of apparently illegal deforestation between 2012 and 2018 on Horita’s Centúria farm in Estrondo.⁵⁶ While this deforestation took place before the EUDR’s December 2020 cut-off date, its illegal nature makes soy produced on this farm non-compliant with the regulation.

Earthsight’s report published in April 2024, Fashion Crimes,⁵⁷ exposed evidence of land grabbing against the Horita Group. Horita is accused by Bahia’s Attorney General of illegally acquiring a 2,169-ha property – Alegre farm – at the fundo e fecho de pasto traditional community of Capão do Modesto, in the municipality of Correntina.⁵⁸ The area is being used as a legal reserve for Horita’s Sagarana soy and cotton farm, nearly 150km away.⁵⁹  

Nineteen private properties illegally overlap the Capão do Modesto community’s 11,200-ha territory.⁶⁰ Most of these plots were sold to agribusinesses⁶¹ to be used as ‘paper’ legal reserves, enabling additional deforestation to take place elsewhere – a manoeuvre used throughout western Bahia and known as ‘green land grabbing’.⁶² 

Contrary to Horita’s claims that the Alegre farm does not overlap the traditional community’s lands, in 2023 a court suspended all land titles overlapping Capão do Modesto and linked to land grabbing, including the one for Horita’s Alegre farm.⁶³ Three of the Horita brothers who co-own the Horita Group are defendants in an ongoing court case launched by Bahia’s attorney general against landowners accused of land grabbing at Capão.

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But the communities have fought back. In April 2017 they filed a lawsuit against Estrondo and, the following year, Bahia’s government recognised the communities’ rights over 82,775ha of land.⁶⁹ Another battle for justice for the geraizeiro communities was won in April 2024, when Brazil’s Superior Court of Justice recognised their right to occupy a specific area within the estate, in acknowledgement that it forms part of their traditional lands.⁷⁰  

Horita did not respond to our requests for comment for this report. However, in comments sent to Earthsight ahead of the publication of Fashion Crimes, which focused on Horita’s cotton production and outlined many of the same findings, Horita denied it owns properties within Estrondo. Yet satellite imagery, land titles, court documents and other evidence seen by Earthsight clearly demonstrate that the Horita Group does in fact own and lease farms within Estrondo.⁷¹  

Horita is also linked to one of Brazil’s largest corruption scandals. In 2019 the Federal Police’s ‘Operation Far West’ exposed widespread corruption involving judges, lawyers and agribusinesses, who conspired to secure favourable court rulings to legitimise approximately 800,000ha of land grabs. Among those implicated was Walter Horita, one of the Horita Group’s owners.^{72, 73} Horita was reported to have made bank transfers worth at least BRL7.5 billion (EUR1.2 billion) in breach of transparency rules about sender and beneficiary data.^{74, 75} Horita allegedly paid BRL30 million (EUR4.98 million) to Brazilian authorities as part of a plea bargain.⁷⁶ 

In comments previously sent to Earthsight, Horita stated that independent audits confirm Walter Horita has never moved money in breach of transparency rules. The company also vehemently denied the existence of the plea bargain.

Tainted soy grown by Mizote, Franciosi Agro and Horita is exported to the EU by two of the world’s largest soy traders: Cargill and Bunge. Both traders are infamous for their links to deforestation, land grabbing and human rights abuses in Brazil, including those outlined in Earthsight’s 2022 report, There Will be Blood.^{77, 78} 

Bunge and Cargill together accounted for almost 70 per cent of the 2 million tonnes of soy exported from Bahia to the EU between 2021 and 2023.^{79, 80} Both companies have commitments in place to achieve conversion- and deforestation-free supply chains in Brazil by 2025,^{81, 82} yet continue to buy soy from producers driving the decline of the Cerrado. 

The agribusinesses mentioned above are well-known to Bunge and Cargill. Earthsight has had access to supply contracts signed between Cargill and Paulo Mizote,⁸³ the company’s managing Director, while trade links between Mizote and Bunge were established by AidEnvironment in 2022.⁸⁴ Two Bunge or Cargill facilities are within a 100km radius of Mizote’s Barra Velha farm and nine within a 100km radius of Santa Paula. Mizote‘s trade relationships with both Cargill and Bunge were confirmed in 2023 during conversations between Earthsight’s undercover investigators and a Mizote employee.

A Horita representative told Earthsight’s undercover investigators the company exports soy to the EU via commodity traders, including Cargill. Horita’s Sagarana farm, whose legal reserve is linked to land grabbing at Capão do Modesto, is only 20km away from a Bunge facility that exported 52,430 tonnes of soy to the EU in 2023.⁸⁵ 

A 2022 interview with a Franciosi Agro employee confirmed that Cargill exports soybeans produced by the group.⁸⁶ In February 2024 journalists from the French media outlet France 24 followed a truck loaded with soy from Franciosi Agro’s Santa Isabel farm complex to Bunge’s facility in Luís Eduardo Magalhães.⁸⁷  

When approached for comment, Bunge did not deny links with any of the three producers in western Bahia. Cargill confirmed it buys soy from two of the three companies, but did not specify which. Cargill said the two producers within its supply chains have been cleared by the company’s verification process. Mizote did not deny trade links with Bunge or Cargill. Franciosi Agro and Horita did not respond to Earthsight’s requests for comment.

The secret ingredient in European chicken

Brazilian soy exported to the EU by Cargill and Bunge is primarily processed into animal feed to supply Europe’s meat industry. An estimated 90 per cent of the soy consumed by Europeans is indirectly consumed this way,⁸⁸ and Bunge is the EU‘s main supplier of soy for animal feed.⁸⁹ The soy produced in Bahia and exported by Bunge to the EU between 2021 and 2023 is enough to produce an average of over 428 million chicken legs per year.⁹⁰ 

"Just by doing their weekly grocery shop, European consumers risk complicity in deforestation, violence and land grabbing in the Brazilian Cerrado."

In 2021, Dutch NGO Milieudefensie traced soy from Bunge to three of Europe’s largest feed producers.⁸⁰ This includes De Heus, which has over 80 production locations and sales in 75 countries.⁹¹ In comments sent to Earthsight, neither Bunge nor De Heus denied that this supply relationship continues.  

Online sources and companies’ responses sent to Earthsight reveal De Heus sells animal feed to chicken farmers who supply Plukon Food Group^{92, 93} – a Dutch company that ranks fourth among European chicken slaughterhouses⁹⁴ and currently operates 34 sites across six countries, including the Netherlands, Germany and France.⁹⁵ De Heus is one of Plukon’s three shareholders. Supply chain links between Plukon and Cargill were previously exposed by Greenpeace Netherlands in 2018.⁹⁶ 

Plukon supplies chicken products to some of Europe’s biggest supermarkets. These include Germany’s largest retail chain, Edeka, and Dutch supermarket Albert Heijn. In France, Earthsight found evidence of Plukon products in Intermarché and supermarket giant Carrefour – the world’s third-largest supermarket chain in 2021.⁹⁷ Together, these retailers have around 21,500 stores across Europe.⁹⁸