agriculture

John Sauven, campaign special projects director for Greenpeace UK, explains how Greenpeace worked with McDonald's to change the food industry's attitude towards Amazon soya.

"Huge chickens invaded fast food stores in London and started to ask customers if they knew they were eating soya from deforested areas of the Amazon. That was in April. The chickens were noisy Greenpeace activists... It took McDonald's only six hours between the first 'homo chickenacius' invasion of its restaurants and the phone call to Greenpeace to discuss the issue. Why? Because fast-food consumers started to be choked with McNuggets and McChickens. Ethical consumption's appeal is increasing."

In an historic deal that has impacts far beyond the golden arches and into the global agricultural market, McDonald's is now the leading company in the campaign to halt deforestation for the expansion of soya farming in the Amazon.

You may never have heard of Cargill, but they are the largest privately-owned company in the world. They also happen to be one of the major culprits in the continuing destruction of the Amazon rainforest, driving deforestation to make room for soya plantations. That soya is then shipped out to Europe for animal feed.

As we revealed in early April, McDonald's have been implicated in the clearance of the Amazon rainforest to grow soya for animal feed and, thanks to the thousands of emails and letters you sent, they're talking to us about how they can get out of the Amazon.