The Cerrado is Brazil’s second-largest biome, covering 23.3% of the national territory. The headwaters of South America’s three largest river basins originate within the biome, supplying water to major cities, irrigating the country’s main agricultural regions, and supporting electricity generation across much of Brazil (MMA, 2022). Despite its importance, the biome has already lost 93 million hectares of native vegetation, nearly half of its original extent, with 51% converted to pasture, 28% to agricultural areas, and 17% to agricultural mosaics (MapBiomas, 2024). In 2024, for the second consecutive year, the Cerrado recorded the largest deforested area among all Brazilian biomes: 652,197 hectares, equivalent to 52.5% of all deforestation nationwide that year (MapBiomas, 2025).

Cattle ranching is the main driver of this conversion. Part of the explanation lies in the legislation itself. Brazil’s Forest Code (Law 12,651/2012) requires the preservation of only 20% to 35% of native vegetation on rural properties in the Cerrado, whereas in the Amazon the requirement reaches 80%. This means that most deforestation in the biome occurs legally, making enforcement of legal compliance a necessary, but insufficient, condition for containing it. Contributing to this vulnerability are the biome’s central geographic location, with easy access through a dense road network, and the low concentration of protected areas, such as Indigenous lands and conservation units, which in the Amazon have acted as barriers against the advance of deforestation.

Beef companies occupy a strategic position in this context. The beef production chain consists of three phases: breeding, rearing, and fattening. Direct suppliers are the farms that sell cattle directly to the beef company; indirect suppliers are all properties through which the animal passed beforehand. As the central link between rural producers and national and international markets, beef companies have a real capacity to influence supplier behavior by defining purchasing criteria (GTFI, 2025).

The Amazon experience demonstrates this capacity. Following the introduction of the Terms of Adjustment of Conduct signed with the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office, known as the Cattle TACs, the probability of a meatpacking company purchasing from properties with recent deforestation fell by half, and deforestation rates among supplier farms declined significantly (Gibbs et al., 2016). Subsequent research confirmed that, after the TACs, meatpacking companies continued to grow without deforestation accompanying this expansion (Da Mata, Dotta, & Severnini, 2026). The lesson is clear: verifiable and legally enforceable commitments can decouple cattle sector growth from the loss of native vegetation.

Even in the Amazon, however, this progress has limits. Monitoring is limited to direct suppliers, while indirect suppliers, through which cattle spend most of their lives, on average two to three years, remain beyond the reach of traceability systems. This gap creates opportunities for so-called cattle laundering, in which animals raised in deforested areas are transferred to compliant properties shortly before being sold to the meatpacking company (Gibbs et al., 2016). In February 2026, the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office announced new guidelines for the gradual control of indirect suppliers in the Legal Amazon, with implementation scheduled through 2028 (MPF, 2026; Boi na Linha, 2026), although the mechanism is still in its early stages.

In the Cerrado, no agreement equivalent to the Cattle TACs is currently in force. The Voluntary Monitoring Protocol for Cattle Suppliers in the Cerrado, launched in 2024, represents an important step forward by establishing standardized technical criteria for monitoring direct suppliers in the biome (Proforest & Imaflora, 2024). The Protocol has strong potential, but because it is voluntary and does not establish penalties for non-compliance, it does not yet carry the same behavioral enforcement power demonstrated by the Cattle TACs in the Amazon. As a result, supply chain control over both direct and indirect suppliers remains minimal or non-existent for the vast majority of beef companies operating in the biome.

It is within this context that Radar Verde Cerrado 2026 is positioned. The initiative evaluates whether beef companies operating in the biome have public, verifiable, and effectively implemented policies to prevent the beef they commercialize from being associated with the loss of native vegetation, considering both direct suppliers and indirect suppliers. By making this information public and comparable, Radar Verde provides a concrete basis for buyers, investors, financiers, and policymakers to assess company performance and demand verifiable progress where the legal framework has yet to reach.