Greenpeace has pushed McDonalds to stop selling chickens that are fed by soya grown in the Amazon. McDonalds was contributing to the deforstation of the Amazon Rainforest. Treehugger did a post on it back in April, read it for a bit of background info on the issue. Greenpeace did a report called Eating Up The Rainforest, (click the title for a pdf of the report…which is very image heavy…btw.) which is really interesting. The report focuses on Cargill and McDonalds.
Three US-based agricultural commodities giants – Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), Bunge and Cargill – are responsible for about 60% of the total financing of soya production in Brazil. Together, these three companies also control more than three-quarters of the soya crushing capacity in Europe that supplies soya meal and oil to the animal feed market.
Spiralling demand for soya animal feed from European agribusiness is driving the expansion of the agricultural frontier into the Amazon rainforest. Europe buys half the soya exported from the Amazon state of Mato Grosso, where 90% of rainforest soya is grown. Meat reared on rainforest soya finds its way onto supermarket shelves and fast food counters across Europe.
Well, Greenpeace had a McVictory, and McDonalds will no longer be participating in the amazon soy/deforstation activies!
