The Brazilian authorities found out about this situation last week when inspecting two cattle farms. There, 35 workers were found in almost slavery conditions, according to Reporter Brazil, an organization that works on these issues.

Among the victims of these abuses by the employers was a woman and six underage people. They had been working there for almost a month, cleaning fields and chopping wood from native forests for raising cattle.

The inspection also found that the IDs of the underage people had been modified and that the health and sanitation conditions were extremely poor. They didn´t have access to adequate bathrooms and food was scarce, according to Reporter Brazil.

The expansion of cattle farming in the North and North-East area of Brazil is quite a recent phenomenon and is related to the changes in the production model in the Southern area of the country, where cattle farming had been historically concentrated.

Some are clear examples of this. Aracatuva is a city located in Sao Paulo State, to the South-East of Brazil, and for many years it was considered the “national capital of livestock”.

However, in the past years the situation has changed. Alfredo Neves Filho, President of the Cattle Farmers Union, recognized that the transition from cattle farming to sugarcane production for ethanol has meant a “salvation” for the sector.

Cattle farmers are choosing to let their lands to sugarcane-alcohol companies, or they even produce sugarcane themselves for a simple reason: the profitability of this new activity is three times higher than the activity they used to carry out, and this has caused cattle farming to expand to other areas of Brazil.

Photo: Repórter Brasil