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The Soya StorySoya: a global threat? - How soya impacts the environment
By Tony Wardle Soya beans originated in China about 2853 BC and even back then attracted a glowing epithet as the sacred bean. It’s a bit of an irony that having exported this wonder bean to countries worldwide, China is now sucking in global production at an ever-increasing rate. Sadly, it has little to do with soya’s original use – to make mock meat, tofu, miso, soya milk and soya sauce. China’s demand, along with all the other industrialised and industrializing countries, is for animal feed for farmed livestock. 
In an inexplicable perversion of nature, humankind has taken the most extraordinarily nutritious plant known and is wasting it by feeding it to animals – recycling it to produce meat and milk. The ratio of waste ranges from 6:1 with chickens to as high as 17:1 with cattle – i.e. it requires from 6kg to 17kg of of soya protein to produce 1kg of meat protein (Reijnders and Soret, 2003). On the other hand, 1kg of soya can produce 10 litres of soya milk, making it about five times cheaper than cow’s milk. Added to this wastefulness is the skyrocketing growth in the number of farmed animals as the global demand for meat increases and a subsequent explosion of demand for soya as fodder. The outcome was predictable – there is simply not enough agricultural land available to meet this demand. 
It was inevitable that there would be an environmental and human impact. It manifests itself in the felling of rainforests, the destruction of wilderness areas and handing over to multinational corporations land that was destined for landless peasants – all to increase the massive monocultures of soya beans. Beans are far more profitable than standing forests or poverty-stricken people! Leader in the field of soya cultivation and in using it for animal feed is the US but its predominance is being challenged as countries across the globe scramble to grow soya for animals and cash in on this lucrative crop. Brazil is now the second biggest producer, with the industry almost entirely in the hands of three huge multinational corporations. Of all cleared Amazon rainforest land, 30 per cent is used to grow soya and the other 70 per cent is used for grazing cattle. Producers of animals for meat and dairy are behind almost all the deforestation in the world (UN/FAO, 2006). In Argentina, soya has staged an extraordinary takeover with some 40 per cent of its agriculture devoted to this one crop. Between them, these three countries produce four-fifths of the world’s soya crops (Valente, 2004.) In 1995, China was self-sufficient in soya beans, producing five million tons a year. As its development roared away and people’s incomes rose, they aped the West by consuming ever-increasing amounts of dairy and fish and its meat consumption rocketed to double that of the US. The outcome was that in 2009 they were consuming 55 million tons of soya beans and had become the world’s biggest importer, sucking in 41 million tons annually (Workman, 2007). 
The incredible inefficiency of animals has resulted in livestock demanding 70 per cent of the world’s agricultural land for either grazing or growing fodder – and it’s all been used up. All that remains is largely forested land which is why the primary reason for its destruction is grazing and growing soya beans (UN/FAO, 2006). This destruction is an environmental disaster and is the second biggest source of greenhouse gases – and yet the destruction continues. In 2007, the 27 countries of the EU imported 24.8 million tonnes of soya meal – 18 million tonnes from Brazil alone. The UK’s share of this despoilation of rainforests was 790,000 tonnes, most of it from Brazil (Friends of the Earth, 2008). The reason that soya gained such a vaunted reputation back in history was not because of its use in animal feed but because it fed humans so well. It is not only high in protein but contains the same full range of amino acids as meat. It is estimated that on a global scale, 10 hectares of land could feed two people on a meat diet, 10 on maize, 24 on wheat but an extraordinary 61 on soya (Tickell, 1991). That’s how nutritious it is! When used as animal feed, the oil is removed and the ‘de-fatted’ residue is turned into meal or pressed into cakes. It is from this residue that ‘soya isolates’ are obtained for making mock meat products (meat analogues). Foods such as tofu (bean curd), tempeh, soya sauce and most soya milks are made from whole beans and are therefore of higher nutritional value. Because of the international nature of the soya trade, it’s hard to discover precisely what other uses soya has. It is estimated that at least 80 per cent finds its way into animal fodder whilst most of the remainder is used in mainstream food production as paddings and fillers in meat pies and pasties and thousands of other products, as well as extracts such as lecithin (Lawrence, 2006). A very small proportion is used to make dedicated soya products such as tofu. Currently, there seems to be great delight on the part of the media to have a go at vegetarians and vegans in a vain attempt to prove that they are just as threatening to the planet as meat-eaters. Of course it’s nonsense but many people seem to believe it. One such criticism is that by eating soya products they are destroying rainforests. The fact that soya bean cultivation is causing environmental havoc across the globe is not the fault of veggies as they consume such a small amount of the total – and most of that tends to be organic and sourced from the US. Get rid of farmed animals and not a single tree would be felled because of us. 
One thing is certain, a cow eats far more soya to produce a slab of meat than is required to produce a slab of tofu. Proof of this comes from China. For over 3,000 years soya products formed an essential part of Chinese people’s diet and even when its population exploded to more than a billion it was still self sufficient in soya. It was only when they turned to the mass consumption of meat and dairy that their demand for soya exploded. Any decision to change from meat to a veggie diet is better, not just for the animals themselves and the rainforest, but also for all the other environmental catastrophes that are linked to livestock production – expanding deserts, soil degradation, global warming, acid rain, nitrogen pollution, antibiotic resistance and superbugs.
References
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The Soya Story - ContentsResources:
Myth-Busting Soya and the Environment FAQs Soya research |
The Soya Story
The Safety of Soya 
Soya-Based Infant Formula 
The Soya Saga  |
Vegetarian & Vegan Foundation Top Suite, 8 York Court, Wilder Street, Bristol, BS2 8QH, UK T: 0117 970 5190 W: www.vegetarian.org.uk E: info@vegetarian.org.uk |
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