Minerva Foods achieves 100% traceability in direct supplier farms in Colombia

Traceability is one of the central pillars of Minerva Foods’ sustainability strategy, which has just achieved 100% monitoring of its direct supplier farms in Colombia, ahead of the goal set two years ago in its public commitment – the forecast was to reach 100% by the end of 2023.

The company aims to ensure that illegal deforestation is zero across its entire South American supply chain by 2030. Colombia is the third country where Minerva Foods has operations to achieve this milestone. The first was Brazil, where the company pioneered the expansion of geographical monitoring to all biomes in which it operates, beyond the Amazon—such as the Cerrado, Pantanal, Caatinga, and Mata Atlântica—and currently has 100% of cattle purchases monitored throughout the country. In 2021, it had already advanced in expanding the use of geospatial technology, achieving 100% monitoring of direct supplier farms in Paraguay as well.

Minerva Foods continues to make progress in initiatives to ensure zero illegal deforestation throughout the South American production chain by 2030. In Uruguay, for example, the goal is to achieve 100% by 2025 and has already made progress with more than 20% of direct suppliers monitored. In Argentina, where the goal is to reach 100% by 2030, monitoring is already at about 90%.

In the chain of indirect suppliers, the company has also been leading initiatives in the sector. Minerva Foods was a pioneer in testing and integrating into its internal systems the Visipec® tool for complementary traceability and monitoring in the Amazon. The tool was developed by the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) in partnership with the Gibbs – Land-Use and Environment Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and aims to cross-reference information from the Rural Environmental Registry (CAR) of the property with public databases to track cattle movement throughout the production cycle.

To support its cattle ranching partners in marketing sustainably-sourced livestock, the company launched the SMGeo Prospec® app for rural producers throughout Brazil, in collaboration with Niceplanet Geotechnology, enabling them to check the compliance of their production chain through socio-environmental analyses across the country.

This tool allows for detailed research, with access to historical data and socio-environmental compliance analyses, aiding in risk mapping before any transactions. To encourage its use, Minerva Foods has been providing vouchers to partner cattle ranchers.

However, efforts for more sustainable cattle farming are not limited to traceability.

Decarbonization is another central point in Minerva Foods’ ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) strategy, which includes the Renove program as an important agent for engaging producers in adopting good practices in the field, aiming to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The initiative includes projects to add value to the supply chain, creating income enhancement opportunities, primarily through the generation of carbon credits and marketing of carbon-neutral products.

Recently, the company announced its entry into the ILPF Network (Crop-Livestock-Forestry Integration), one of the most important practices in the ABC Plan for the mitigation and adaptation of climate change, becoming the first in the livestock sector to represent the “P” (for livestock, “Pecuária”, in Portuguese) of the association, in partnership with Embrapa, aiming for scientific backing, bringing the best science and technology to cattle ranchers and providing the necessary tools for increasingly sustainable operations.

Translated from: Brazil Journal.