How an American meat broker is fueling Amazon deforestation

By SASHA CHAVKIN
Pulitzer Center

WASHINGTON (AP) — According to data analysis by The Associated Press and the Rainforest Investigations Network, a nonprofit reporting consortium, an American company is among the key beef suppliers and distributors contributing to the destruction of the Amazon rainforest. A little-known Utah-based meat trader, PMI Foods, has shipped more than $1.7 billion in Brazilian beef over the last decade, almost all of it to China. PMI’s role provides a window into how the growing international beef trade is fueling destruction of the world’s largest rainforest, and how middlemen who contribute to that trade have avoided scrutiny.