Why ‘King of Cattle’ is embracing a plan to save the Amazon

Decades of ranching in the Amazon have earned Roque Quagliato, Brazil's "King of Cattle," great wealth — and some trouble. His family's immense farms were accused of submitting workers to slavery-like conditions in the 1990s and deforesting huge tracts of the rainforest in the early 2000's. But as Brazil's beef industry evolves under pressure from some of the world's greatest export markets, Quagliato, at 85, is now in evidence for something else: he is the face of the push to fix cattle ranching in the Amazon, one of the world's biggest drivers of deforestation.

Quagliato's cattle were the first to be tagged with chips in their ears as part of a government program to make millions of cattle in the Amazonian state of Para traceable around the time world leaders arrive there for the United Nations climate summit in November.

"What we hope is that, at the end, the international market gives Brazil a better price," he said at the sidelines of a recent cattle auction in Xinguara, one of the beef capitals of Para. Deforesters, he added, are now "a matter for jail." Quagliato has his eyes on exporting pricier and more demanding markets in the United States, Europe and Asia, some of which buy from Brazilian states but not Para at least partly because of concerns around animal health and links to deforestation. "Brazil is hustling to open high-demand markets such as Japan and South Korea, and improving its traceability system is one of the key steps to reaching that goal," said Renan Araujo, a senior market analyst at S&P Global.

Para, which has a herd of 26 million, about the size of Australia's, wants to tag all its cattle by 2027 as it seizes on the global spotlight to become a test for a wider policy and a major shift for the world's largest beef exporter.

So far, it's off to an inauspicious start. The law, passed in late 2023, requires that ranchers in Para identify their cattle by the end of 2026. But by May ranchers in the state of Para had only tagged some 12,000 cattle.

But the buy-in of big ranchers, like Quagliato, has allayed concerns that "there was going to be wholesale rejection" of the policy, said Andy Jarvis, who directs the program Future of Food at the Bezos Earth Fund, which donated $16.3 million to Para's project. "The success of this initiative needs the farmers and ranchers themselves to be supporting it."

The ambitious move, if successful, could be a turning point in the struggle to halt the destruction of the world's largest rainforest. Environmentalists have long argued that improvements in cattle traceability would give law enforcement a powerful tool to choke off ranching in illegally deforested farms from the global supply chains relying on Brazil to feed growing global appetite for beef.

While the state's proposal to track cattle individually is no silver bullet against deforestation, it would be a step forward that many thought unimaginable not so long ago.

Many ranchers are resisting the program, which they think will take some of them out of business, and few believe the government will meet its goals for this year. But several big-time farmers interviewed by Reuters are throwing weight behind the policy. "There is a cost," Quagliato said. But when ranchers sit down to talk about it, he added, they simply conclude that "we have to do it."

The Quagliato family still faces questions over their own impact on the forest and its people. Brazil's federal environmental protection agency said Quagliato paid all his deforestation fines, except for one which he settled, agreeing to regenerate the forest. One of his family members was recently convicted of submitting workers to slave-like labor conditions, though he is appealing. Quagliato declined to comment on these cases.

Tagging each cow in Para isn't simply a tool to guarantee animals aren't eating grass where forests were illegally razed. More than anything, it allows animal health agencies to quickly track any sick cattle and their contacts.

Data suggests the market rewards traceable herds. The average price of the beef Brazil exports is 8% lower than Uruguay's, which traces cattle individually, according to 2024 data from the Brazilian Beef Exporters Association.

That's partly because Uruguay sells much of its beef to the European Union, which has long worked to rid its supply chains of ties to deforestation and requires individual traceability at least 90 days before cattle are slaughtered.

Most big ranchers interviewed by Reuters see cattle tagging as an unavoidable path forward, though some fear Para is moving too fast for farmers to adapt and would like the policy to be watered down.

Quagliato declined to say how big his herd is or how many of his cattle he had tagged. Local publications have estimated his herd size to be around 150,000 cattle.

Ranchers told Reuters they are waiting to comply until the legal deadline comes closer, because they want to make sure it won't be delayed as many observers expect. Some also complained about technical glitches in the system to register cattle, which the government denies.

Still, the project has gained support from both the meat packing industry and environmental groups. São Paulo-based JBS, the world's biggest meat packer, has donated 300,000 tags to the program so far.

"I'm optimistic," said Marina Guyot, a policy manager at Imaflora, a nonprofit that received a grant from Bezos to help implement the policy. "At the moment, we have political will, which is more than half the way there."

'IT SCARES US'

Alaion Lacerda's 50-strong cattle herd at the heart of Para state munch on grass alongside cocoa growing beneath the shade of native trees he planted. He is one of thousands of small producers at the bottom of Brazil's supply chain, providing young calves that bigger ranchers will fatten and sell to slaughterhouses.

But, like about half the cattle in Para, his herd is grazing in areas where the rainforest was illegally razed, and he now wonders if the new law will make it harder for him to sell his cattle.

"It scares us," he said, sitting on his porch. "We live in a region where almost all producers have a liability."

Every day satellites collect visual data on deforestation that the government and meat packers use to mark farms where forests were illegally razed. But tagging will allow officials to geo-locate cattle with a swiping device.

The tool could make it harder for farmers to say cattle that were reared in illegally deforested areas came from legal farms, said Ricardo Negrini, a federal prosecutor who monitors links to deforestation in the beef supply.

But the program, he added, "still falls short in terms of environmental standards," partly because the tags only geolocate animals at specific moments, allowing ample time for bad-faith producers to move cattle without being noticed.

"Whatever you want to control, you can't catch everything," said Raul Protazio Romao, the head of Para's environmental department. "You have to progressively implement control mechanisms that constantly evolve and close gaps."

Lincoln Bueno, a big rancher whose family also controls beef exporter Mercurio, said he is not yet tracing his cattle because he fears he may be punished for buying from small suppliers who have illegally deforested plots in their land.

"I can only do what I am able to comply with," he said.

Convincing ranchers like Bueno and Lacerda to tag their cattle is Para's biggest challenge. It's why the government now allows farmers who have illegally cleared forest on their ranches in the past to clear their records by committing to allowing the forest to grow back. On a recent morning, agricultural analysts from a nonprofit called Solidaridad, visited several small ranchers who they hoped would enter the program. Some were open to the idea that cleaning up their records would have benefits. Others, like Lacerda, were more skeptical.

"For me to reforest, isolate the area so I can be legal, I'm going to have to reduce the number of animals," he said. But that, he added, "will affect my income."