The world’s largest meat company is preparing to build a sprawling industrial beef operation in Nigeria—its first on the African continent—but has not revealed details about its plans, prompting a challenge by environmental advocates.
JBS, the Brazilian beef juggernaut plagued by corruption scandals and ongoing links to deforestation in the Amazon rainforest, announced its first foray into Africa in 2024 after signing an agreement with the Nigerian government. The company says it will open at least six slaughterhouses in the country, investing $2.5 billion, nearly half of its broader $6 billion global expansion plans.
“It’s a bridgehead into a growing continent,” said Alex Wijeratna, an attorney with Mighty Earth, an advocacy group that has tracked JBS’s connections to deforestation and sued it in the past for making climate-related promises that conflict with its business plans. “There’s a lot of food insecurity across the nation, across the continent, so there’s concern. What are the terms of this investment? What analysis have they done? What information have they released into the public domain? What kind of impact will that have on landscapes, deforestation?”
A recent analysis found JBS’s emissions of methane, the short-lived but especially potent greenhouse gas, exceeded those of Shell and ExxonMobil combined in 2023.
