What If Brazilians Reduce Their Beef Consumption?

In favor of sustainability and human health, a dietary change is urgent. Beef, among all foods, has the greatest environmental impact and is associated with several chronic diseases. Brazil is one of the largest consumers of meat in the world, and most of its greenhouse gas emissions are related to deforestation and agricultural activities. Therefore, this article projects economic and environmental impacts of beef consumption reduction by preference changes and beef tax increase, with and without revenue neutral mechanism. We use a dynamic interregional Computable General Equilibrium model, with a land use change module and substitution between different foods in its consumption and production structure, for regions of the Brazilian Amazon, Matopiba and the rest of Brazil. The results show that a 40% reduction in beef consumption distributed along the period from 2022 to 2050 would help to avoid deforestation of around 65.000 km², with potential to mitigate up to 2.8 GtCO₂e. Preference changes would have a virtually zero impact in GDP in 2050, while beef tax provoke general costs increase, leading to negative variation in exports and GDP (subsidies attenuate). In all scenarios, regional impacts would be heterogeneous, affecting more the regions most dependent on cattle and beef sector