The 7,000km Journey That Links Amazon Destruction To McDonald's Fast Food
by Leonora Oppenheim, London, UK 
on 04. 7.06
I don’t believe we have many McDonalds devotees in the audience (please correct me if I am wrong), so this news is probably not going so shatter any treehugger’s illusions! Nevertheless the article that John Vidal published in the Guardian yesterday makes for some startling reading. A recent report on the Brazilian soy bean industry, led by Greenpeace investigators, ‘follows a 7,000km chain that starts with the clearing of virgin forest by farmers and leads directly to Chicken McNuggets being sold in British and European fast food restaurants.’ There are however several steps in the food chain before they arrive at the conclusion that McDonalds is to blame for the destruction of the Amazon rainforest. First stop, after the farmers, is the ‘US agribusiness giant Cargill, which has built a port and 13 soya storage works in the Amazon region. It provides farmers with seeds and agrochemicals to grow hundreds of thousands of tonnes of beans a year.’
Next stop is ‘Sun Valley, a wholly owned Cargill subsidiary that rears chickens. The company provides McDonald's, the largest fast food company in the world, with up to 50% of all the chicken it serves in Britain and across Europe.’ And so we arrive at McDonalds through chicken soya-feed. While chicken feed might be dismissed as, well, chicken feed, it no longer seems insignificant when we learn that soya plantations were responsible for 25,000 sq kilometres of deforestation last year. While this sounds like a lot Vidal explains that ‘only 5% of the soya grown in Brazil is from the Amazon, that small quantity, says Greenpeace, threatens to destroy the forest's ecosystems.’ Futher more the environmental dangers of extensive soya farming are not just relevant to the rainforest, but also to the biodiversity and the quality of soil in traditional farming areas. TreeHugger has previously reported on this problem in relation to biofuel.
This is (clearly) not the first time that McDonalds has been accused of environmental negligence. Vidal tells us that ‘this report follows attempts by campaigners in the 90s to link McDonald's to rainforest destruction. Those accusations were refuted in Britain's longest civil trial, dubbed Mclibel, which ended in 1997.’ McDonalds, Cargill and Sun Valley have all defended their positions claiming that they take their ‘supply chain and environmental responsibilities very seriously.’ However the report clearly informs us that ‘soya is the most powerful destroyer of the Amazon,’ and Greenpeace is, as one one would expect, not placated by these responses. You can see their hostile graphic campaign above and on their protest page here. So while the multinationals are busy passing the buck, and Greenpeace is busy trashin' MacDonalds, it seems we should be getting busy too. It is time not only be aware of what we are eating and where it came from, but also of what our potential food might be eating and where that came from. Thanks to tippster Kate Phillips. Read the full article by John Vidal here ::Guardian
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ha "we don't use rainforest beef" ok i see, just rainforest Soy... sheesh!
anyone else notice the totally weird parts of this story, i.e. greenpeace does the research but also awards McDonalds with climate chaneg hero status in the same quarter? at least they dont back down after the accolades... I mean it could be that the Greenpeace we all knwo and love did the clkimate change award, and "Greenpeace UK" (the guys who lost the McLibel suit years ago) did this... I mean it is their style... kinda neat that two greenpeaces would be so far appart...
...and what about Cargil. ffs! these are the "NatureworksPLA" people who care sooooo much about the planet that they have put a straglehold onto any other PLA plastic (like the superior and waset fed beer plastic from shimadzu umong many many others)... Cargil can pay for C2C certification but it still wont stop them from being EVIL! Thanks Leonora!
BTW: "This is not the first time that McDonalds has been accused of environmental negligence." this is a classic line in the anals of green blogging!
Ok Earthchange I hear "understatement" ringing loudly in my TreeHugger ears over here, so I have subtly adjusted my 'classic line'for you.
no no no your're perfect just the way you are!
Are there any better fast food chains. While McDonalds is in the news a lot I can see Burger King, Wendy's of KFC doing the same thing
Wow. I think this article says a lot on Mcdonalds. I stopped eating there over two years go, not because of where the food comes from but because of my health, It was hurting me. Now people know McDonalds does not only hurt people, but almost everything around it.
I almost didn't read this article, because Greenpeace = FUD. Fortunately the author makes the subtle but important point that the people who are really to blame are the consumers who don't care whats in their burger, much less where it comes from. McDonalds, Cargill, and all the other nameless faceless corporate punching bags are nothing more than intermediaries. Ultimately, the consumer (in this case the European and UK consumer) is directly paying for the destruction of rainforest habitat. McDonald's has already proven it's willingness to bow to consumer pressure (cooler coffee, no more supersizing, and they stopped using animal fat on their fries over a decade ago). So pressure them already.
This is a one sided argument. I don't like fastfood and never eat it unless I am desperate; which is about 3 to 4 times a year. But this article is biased. McDonalds is not the only guilty party in Latin America. Look at the building indistry that is run mostly by gringos. The foresting industry. The banana industry. The pharmaceutical industry. Look at the corrupt officials in those countries who take bribes from corporations and outside governments to let businesses rape their land. CAFTA is going to be a big part of this. Who came up with that treaty. Oh ya, the USA. There is a lot more going on than people know. It's not just in Latin America. It's anywhere there is a country with a poor government that has natural resources that can be raped. And the US is doing a good bit of the porking on that.
"the people who are really to blame are the consumers"
That's such a simplistic cop-out. "Oh, yes, if only every single human being acted ethically, then the amoral corporate powers-that-be would respond." And since that will NEVER occur until the end of time, then we're stuck with nothing.
"McDonald's has already proven it's willingness to bow to consumer pressure (cooler coffee, no more supersizing, and they stopped using animal fat on their fries over a decade ago)."
This wasn't "consumer" pressure, it was pressure from organized entities upon McDonald's (like the one you dismissed in your first sentence).
Individuals do not change the behavior of large, organized entities. That's a false notion. If those with power used their power for good, then we wouldn't need the powerless to do something about it.
I think it's important to remember that McDonald's were targetted because they are the worst of a bad bunch. They spend an awful lot of time in all their corporate literature going on about how the protection of tropical rainforests is a top priority, how their animal feed is traceable to source etc ad nauseum. This has been found to be complete nonsense, and to cap it all they make Cargill, the worst forest criminal in terms of Brazilian soya, their supplier of the year! Soya farming is becoming the biggest driver of Amazon rainforest destruction & companies like Cargill & the people they supply are making a fortune from it. Not only that, the Greenpeace report also revealed how slave labour, land grabbing and in the invasion of supposedly-protected indigenous tribal lands occurs throughout the soya industry within the Amazon. This issue certainly is a problem for the whole of the food industry - Burger King told Greenpeace they couldn't comment on Amazon destruction for soya, but that local libraries should have some information, whilst KFC said that soya wasn't even grown in the Amazon! They're all bad, and as far as I understand they're all considered fair game by Greenpeace, but at the moment McDonald's have wandered into the cross-hairs and are going to be there until they pull their socks up.
So, uh, I'm pretty much boycotting McDonald's now. Even if I'm not in the UK.
McDonalds is nasty! why would anybody even eat it! and oh my gosh its killing the rainforest RUUUUDDDEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i say all the mcdonalds in the world go away because they just make peoiple fat and unhealthy and killing the world!
I wanted to update those that are tracking McDonald's working with Greenpeace on protecting the Amazon rainforest due to issues related to soy farming. I head up CSR for McDonald's and just posted a video blog journal of our trip together with Greenpeace in the Amazon. I think you will find it interesting:
http://csr.blogs.mcdonalds.com/default.asp?mode=blog&category=18020
I'm a mackers devote
MC DONALDS MAY TASTE NICE BUT IT CERTAINLY ISNT HELPING ANYONE!
ITS MAKING %68 OF AMERICANS OBESE AND DESTROYING ALL NATURAL ENVIRONMENTS
NOT ONLY THAT ITS USING %32 OF THE WORLDS OXYGEN TO MAKE PEOPLE FAT AND ADDICTED TO MC DONALDS!!!!! =[
IF U NOTICE ON THE SIDE OF THE BOX IT SAYS HELPING SAVE RAINFORESTS THATS A LIE THEYRE PAYING OTHER PEOPLE TO BUY OIL PLANTATION AND ORGANISE DEFORESTATION AND THEN SECRETLY BUYING IT OFF THEM!!!
WE SHUD SUE THEM ALL !!!!!!!!!!!! GGGGGGGGGRRRRRRRRRRR