For the GTPS, traceability is the process of identifying inputs and raw materials of beef cattle products in all locations covered by the beef and leather value chain, from the farm of origin to receipt, production, processing and distribution.

This process must consider the availability of data shared voluntarily or publicly and ensure the integrity and accuracy of the information.

Traceability is important for the management of the supply chain in livestock farming and beef and leather processing.

It is a process that precedes and enables monitoring analyses of several attributes of the value chain, whether related to food safety, social and environmental aspects of the production and processing chains or even the health of the Brazilian herd. This process must be subject to verification of social and environmental compliance.

Proposing and implementing strategies that lead to full traceability in the value chain is still a challenge. This must be done in harmony with other existing protocols and take place in a collaborative environment that enables the greatest possible participation of the stakeholders. Its principles should include:

transparency in the supply chain

continuous integration of farmers
(awareness and engagement)

effective communication with consumers

guarantee of food, social and environmental integrity

For the GTPS, monitoring is the verification of social and environmental compliance and sustainable practices in the production systems of the beef and leather value chain. 

Monitoring work is usually done through a system. It should include all the locations involved in the beef and leather chain and produce information and metrics on social and environmental criteria and good production practices. Different atributes of these locations are subject to monitoring, whether they refer to the production system itself or social and environmental aspects. 

Monitored farms and processing units, as well as those involved in the production system, may be impacted by the analysis of management, productive, social and environmental performance. 

Monitoring enables us to measure and follow up on the indicators of established sustainable practices. It may include legal requirements and agreements previously made between the several links in the chain, from the farm to the end consumer.

Moreover, it enables the identification of patterns and deviations and guides preventive and corrective actions along the entire beef and leather production and processing chain. This helps ensure safety and transparency in the production process and minimize business risks.

Another benefit of ongoing monitoring is that consumers buy products with a guarantee of origin and public health. On the production side, those who work in compliance with the requirements stand out and those who don’t can become aware of their problems and address them, either individually or collectively.

Some of the challenges include the country’s structural problems and lack of information. In other words, the State does not provide the necessary conditions for the productive sector to carry out environmental and land regularization in an agile, intelligent and unified fashion that could uphold both the rights and duties of the stakeholders.

A good initiative would be creating a unified database to enable regularization and monitoring in a reliable, secure, public and transparent manner, thus avoiding the adoption of divergent rules and protocols or the exposure of confidential or commercially sensitive data.

Another challenge is related to objective and assertive communication with farmers regarding regularization and monitoring initiatives. This could discourage the informal market and promote the inclusion of more farmers.

In this way, greater engagement from the production sector is necessary to expand the vertical monitoring capacity of the chain. The level of demand in the monitoring of indirect suppliers should be determined according to a scalable proposal that enables the full implementation of the monitoring plan.