KFC really does have a secret recipe - want to know what's in
it? Freshly sizzling Amazon Rainforest. That's what goes into the
soy that KFC's famous chickens are fed .
KFC is serving up Amazon destruction by the bucket, and selling
it in hundreds of restaurants throughout Europe. Today, KFC's Board
will meet to review the profits the company has made off of its
forest destruction, and our activists in Brazil have a message for
them: The Colonel is a partner in Amazon crime.
But KFC is not alone. The fast food giant can trace its soy to a
single American company: Cargill.
Cargill owns an illegal export terminal in Santarém, Brazil,
that is supplied by farms operating on illegally cleared rainforest
land. Almost all of the soy passing through this terminal is
destined for Europe.
Greenpeace has uncovered the chain of soy production from its
roots in the Amazon to the Cargill terminals and onto corporate
giants like KFC and McDonald's. We recently released a report, Eating up the Amazon, following
more than two years of investigation.
What’s at Stake?
The Amazon Rainforest is the largest expanse of tropical
rainforest in the world, but it is disappearing at an alarming rate
- since the 1970s, an area of rainforest the size of California has
been lost. Few people today realize that the greatest threat facing
the Amazon is the production of soy.
Soy traders encourage farmers to cut down the rainforest and
plant massive soy monocultures. The traders take the soy and ship
it to Europe where it is fed to animals like chickens and pigs. The
animals are then turned into fast food products.
Three major companies - Cargill, ADM, and Bunge - account for 60
percent of the total financing of soy production in Brazil. By
building soy silos and terminals at the rainforest edge and buying
soy from illegally-cleared and operated farms - including farms
with a documented record of slave labor - these companies are both
spurring and profiting from the soy plunder of the Amazon.
The Amazon rainforest is not only one of the richest and most
biologically diverse regions on the planet, it is also one of the
most threatened. In order to protect this ancient treasure, this
unsustainable development needs to stop immediately. We're calling
on companies to ensure that their soy comes from legal sources
outside the Amazon rainforest, farmed without slave labor and free
of genetic engineering.