In the city of Belém at the mouth of the Amazon rainforest, Brazil has kicked off the COP30 climate conference, a summit framed as a pivotal moment to reduce emissions and keep the Paris Agreement alive. More than 50,000 people are expected to attend, from heads of state to civil society groups.
But as attention turns to Brazil, some of the highest emitters from the food sector are also moving to shape the agenda — positioning industrial farming not as part of the problem, but as a climate solution.
Agriculture’s powerful influence operation comes at a fragile moment. Trust in the COP process is faltering, Global South nations are calling for a fairer finance settlement, and social movements are preparing to defend and promote ecological a approaches rooted in Indigenous knowledge, equity, and family farming.
Behind the scenes, food and farming corporations — including meat giant JBS, pesticide firm Bayer, and food processor Nestlé — which sell products that drive both climate change, deforestation and biodiversity destruction — are promoting a set of actions to tackle global warming that leave their business models intact — or better still, require public investment.
Representatives from companies, accompanied at COP30 by a suite of trade associations and front groups — including those that have previously lobbied to block regulations to protect nature and climate — will bring their message to panel events and attend glitzy receptions, under the logos of sponsored media hubs, and pavilions.
But climate scientists warn that industry’s favoured voluntary solutions —carbon offsets, biofuels, and “efficiency-based” measures to tackle climate change — cannot deliver the deep, sustained cuts needed to preserve a habitable planet.
Assessments show the greenhouses gases that agriculture produces — such as methane and nitrous oxide — can’t be erased using technological fixes alone. Instead, scientists say real progress toward a safe climate will involve systemic transformation: tackling food waste, shifting diets away from high-emission foods. Campaigners say action will also and ending industrial agriculture’s dependence on fossil fuels.
In Belém, industrial food and farming will meet its counterpoint at the “People’s Summit,” where Indigenous, peasant, and environmental movements will challenge the narrative that expanding industrial agriculture is compatible with a safe climate.
The People’s summit will promote a different path — asking for investment in low-impact, resilient farming, from smallholders and Indigenous group, which have preserved nature to-date.
DeSmog’s interactive map traces the powerful and well-connected networks they are up against. We counted more than 23 major companies and 29 industry groups which are active in the lead up or during this year’s climate talks — revealing over 141 points of access for industrial food and farming to oppose international pressure for cuts to agricultural emissions and shape summit outcomes in their favour.
An interactive map showing the food and farming corporations, trade groups and initiatives at COP30 and how they are set to navigate the summit. Map design: Rachel Sherrington
Brazil’s Agribusiness Lobby: A Coordinated Push
Brazil is the world’s sixth-largest greenhouse gas emitter, with agriculture responsible for roughly 74 percent of domestic emissions — 1.8 billion tonnes of CO₂-equivalent — which are generated chiefly by its 236 million-strong cattle herd.
Yet Brazil’s agribusiness groups are working aggressively to cast Brazilian farming as climate-friendly at COP30, which will bring together the heavyweights of Brazilian agribusiness — including JBS, the National Confederation of Agriculture (CNA), the National Confederation of Industry (CNI), and the Brazilian Business Council for Sustainable Development (CEBDS) — all regulars at past climate summits and influential in shaping national and international policy.
Since early 2025, many of these actors have coordinated messaging and proposals to position the sector as a climate leader, aided by close ties to special envoys and senior officials — COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago, has called for the private sector to be “co-architects” of climate policy. Among their representatives is former agriculture minister Roberto Rodrigues, now a COP30 special envoy.
Brazilian agriculture’s demands include “tropicalising” emissions metrics — a move critics say could allow methane emissions to be downplayed — and securing carbon credits for soil-sequestration projects — a solution favoured by industry but which soil science shows will not cancel out the sector’s ballooning emissions footprint.
These ideas will feature prominently across the summit — fromCNI’s sponsored pavilionin the official UN “Blue Zone” to the “Agrizone,” a side venue hosted by state research agency Embrapa, with corporate sponsors, which will showcase “climate-smart” agriculture.
Global Agribusiness Joins the Chorus
While Brazil takes the lead on agro-influencing, global meat, dairy, pesticide, and grain coalitions are amplifying a similar message. The ProteinPACT, and U.S. feed and meat associations — who represent some of the sector’s largest emitters — will arrive in Belém with large delegations and a well-established playbook from previous COPs.
The US dairy industry’s Global Dairy Platform, which DeSmog has revealed lobbied to weaken the GHG protocol, an international standard for how corporations measure their carbon emissions, will also be in Brazil, speaking on panels in the Blue Zone.
This year, industry attention centres on COP30’s new “Activation Groups” — 30 multi-stakeholder coalitions convened by the Brazilian presidency to shape policy on themes such as food systems, land restoration, and fossil fuel phase-out. The Global Meat Alliance (GMA), an initiative of industrial producer groups from the UK, North America and Australia,described the Groups as a chance to “influence policy.” In a statement to DeSmog, the GMA said this influence “reflects the principle that every stakeholder – including farmers, scientists, Indigenous communities, and industry – must have a seat at the table.”
Biogas and biofuel lobbies — including the World Biogas Association and the Pan-American Liquid Fuels Coalition — are also expected to take an active role at this COP, and will have been cheered by a recent leaked document suggesting the Brazilian government planned to use COP to push for a quadrupling of the use in these fuels worldwide. This is despite recent research showing some biofuels are more polluting than fossil energy.
DeSmog’s analysis of UN attendee lists shows the number of agribusiness representatives at climate summits has almost tripled since COP26. Several groups operate through the UN’s Farmers Constituency, which critics say is a key battlefield for corporate verses green, agroecology orientated farmers. Australia’s National Farmers Federation — a key lobbyist against climate action at home and abroad — will attends as part of the World Farmers’ Organisation (WFO).
The WFO acts as a convenor for farmers in global policy spaces such as the COPs. In a statement to DeSmog it described itself as a — “an independent and democratic, member-driven global association that brings together over 75 farmers’ organisations from more than 60 countries across all regions of the world”.
“We advocate for the interests of all farmers — regardless of size, geography, production system, age, or gender — recognising their essential role in food systems and the increasing pressures they face, including more frequent and severe climate-related risks”, they said.
But it has received criticism for counting companies as partners, and peasant groups have accused of “defending business interests.” (In a response to DeSmog the WFO said it represents all members equally.)
Other routes to influence available to the sector, as per past COPs, include panels, side events and drinks at pavilions in the Blue Zone, hosted by governments or by civil society groups, as well as networking spaces outside of these where they can share talking points with government negotiators. It’s in these spaces that industry groups may push the controversial alternative methane emissions metric, GWP*, which allows livestock producers to claim “climate neutrality” when methane emissions stabilise rather than fall.
Agribusiness has powerful allies in its pursuit of GWP*. Last month New Zealand set a dangerous precedent when it adopted the metric, and Ireland has also signalled it will embrace GWP*, even though the UN’s IPCC has rejected it for greenhouse gas accounting, saying it “does not capture the contribution to warming that each methane emission makes.”
“My biggest fear is that this push will fly under the radar for governments negotiating at this COP,” says Shefali Sharma, senior global agricultural policy expert at Greenpeace told DeSmog. “The scientific consensus is that we must dramatically cut methane to slow warming, but those committing to GWP* are locking in a much hotter world.”
With negotiations taking place on a new $300-billion annual climate-finance goal — the so-called New Collective Quantified Goal — agribusiness groups are positioning themselves to receive a share of the funds. Global North meat alliance the GMA and Brazil’s most powerful lobby group the CNA both argue that climate finance should support low-emission agriculture, while the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA) is positioning carbon markets as a means of mobilising the finance promised by world leaders under the NCQG.
Despite the industry’s championing of offsets at COP, an expert review of the literature on offsetting markets over their 25-year history found they systemically failed to deliver emissions reductions benefits, and recommended that they not be pursued as a climate solution.
“It’s a familiar narrative from agribusiness,” said Samanta Fabris of Brazil’s consumer group IDEC. “They say, ‘if you want us to change, invest in us’ — but they already get billions in subsidies, while small producers receive far less.” (A 2021 study from the UN found that — of $590 billion given to agribusiness globally, 90 percent went to harmful industries. In Brazil, small farmers receive one fifth of the credit).
Agrizone Sponsored by Bayer, Nestlé
Beyond the UN’s official “Blue Zone,” agribusiness will command a major presence at the Agrizone, a parallel venue led by Embrapa. Marketed as a hub for “innovation and sustainability,” the Agrizone has drawn sponsorship from a body linked to the CNA, as well as Bayer, Nestlé, and U.S. and global commodity groups representing grains, seeds, pesticides, and fertilizers.
Campaigners have expressed concern that the Agrizone provides a PR platform to some of the most destructive businesses operating in Brazil. More broadly, the zone has added to a sense of building unease over corporate capture of COPs, which has promoted a counter summit: the People’s COP supported by more than 1,000 global organisations. It expects to welcome more than 20,000 activists from across the globe.
Bruno Prado of Brazil’s National Agroecology Alliance, has characterised the summit as “a space that says that we refuse to let the climate agenda be captured by corporate interests or reduced to the closed-door negotiations that we typically see at the COPs”
Embrapa has insisted the Agrizone will highlight a wide range of projects, from partners including government, civil society, smallholder groups, and business, and agroecological and Indigenous projects, in addition to those showcased by companies. Bayer has said it is “important to have platforms like COP where governments and civil society can collaborate,” adding that “combating climate change requires collective efforts from the entire value chain.
But environmental groups remain sceptical. “We’re told this COP will be ‘for the people’ or ‘for the forest,’” said Rachel Rose Jackson of Corporate Accountability, “but it looks like another event where polluters get privileged access which crowds out the space needed .”
Media and PR Push
Outside the formal structures on our map, agribusiness will be setting the mood music with a deluge of cultural noise JBS is sponsoring COP30 coverage through Grupo Globo under the banner COP30 Amazônia and funding a media hub with Grupo Folha near the summit. The CNA and WFO will host the industry-backed film A World Without Cows, defending livestock production against calls for herd reductions by the UN’s IPCC and others.
“Agribusiness wants to be everywhere — in media, influencers, education — to present themselves as the solution,” said Samanta Fabris of IDEC. “More than investment, it’s about always being in the room and controlling the narrative.”
This messaging extends deep into Brazil’s culture — from podcast networks spotlighting pro-agribusiness voices to classroom materials funded by industry campaigns like All With One Voice, which encourages “empathy for producers” among students.
The flood of engagement from industry has added to concerns that, despite small transparency reforms — such as asking attendees to state their affiliation — this will be another summit where corporate engagement is dominant.
A letter from climate policy experts last year said the summits were no longer “fit for purpose” and called for curbs on corporate influence. A recent analysis by Transparency International and InfluenceMap found that of 400 businesses and industry associations to be active at recent COPs, only one-third of which had endorsed Paris-aligned targets. DeSmogand others have revealed how many used the summits to block stronger regulation and even strike business deals.
“Brazil can be a leader at the climate talks and beyond”, said Nusa Urbancic, chief executive of the Changing Markets Foundation, “because it has a success story of family farming lifting people out of poverty and feeding communities sustainably. I hope Brazil leads with that.”
All named organisations and individuals were contacted for comment.
With additional reporting by Michaela Herrmann, Brigitte Wear, Clare Carlile, and Maximiliano Manzoni.
Editing by Hazel Healy
This article is part of DeSmog’s agriculture and climate series. Visit DeSmog’s agribusiness database to find in-depth profiles on Brazil’s main agribusiness lobby groups. New profiles include the leading forum for Brazilian farming unions and states the CNA, beef exporters union Abiec, the trade group representing the largest industrial multinationals, Abag, and government agricultural research unit Embrapa.
US meat industry-led groups that will be active at COP30, including ProteinPACT and the Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, can also be found in DeSmog’s database.
The post Mapped: Big Food’s Routes to Influence at COP30 appeared first on DeSmog.
This post has been syndicated from DeSmog, where it was published under this address.