Soybean Trade: Balancing Environmental and Socio-Economic Impacts of an Intercontinental Market

Abstract

The trade in soybean, an important animal feed product, exemplifies the environmental and socio-economic impact of global markets and global agricultural policy. This paper analyses the impact of increasing production of soybean in the exporting countries (deforestation and grassland conversion) as well as in importing regions (decrease in permanent grassland by substitution of grass as feed). Ecosystem services monetary values were used to calculate the environmental and socio-economic impact of observed land use changes. This is balanced against the economic value of the global soybean trade. The results prove that consumption choices in one region have real effects on the supply of ecosystem services at a large spatial scale. Conclusively, solutions to make this global market more sustainable are discussed.

Fig 1

A) Total import of soybeans and cake of soybeans (in ‘soybean equivalent’ weight, 1 kg cake = 1.21 kg beans, [19]) by the 27 present members of the EU, and the import from the three main countries of origin, 1961, 1986–2008 [21]. B) Soybean area in the three main producing countries, million hectares, 1961–2008 [21].

Fig 2. Land use changes in Brazil and Argentina due to increasing soybean import by Europe, 1961–2008: soybean area expansion in Brazil and Argentina for the export to Europe (A), corresponding changes in tropical grassland and forest in Brazil (B) and Argentina (C).

Fig 3. Correlation between European soybean import from Brazil and Argentina (soybeans and cake of soybeans) and European cattle stock (A), poultry stock (B) and pigs stock (C), 1986–2008 [21,34].

Correlation coefficients respectively: -0.97; 0.69; -0.75.

Fig 4

A: Correlation between cattle stock and area of permanent meadows and pastures in Europe, EU27 (excl. Romania), correlation coefficient: 0.86. B: Correlation between pigs stock and area of cereal production in Europe, correlation coefficient: −0.83. C: Correlation between poultry stock (chicken and turkeys) and area of cereal production in Europe, correlation coefficient: −0.86. 1961–2008, [21,34].

Fig 5. Total Economic Value per land use.

A: Monetary value of food provisioning per land use, with indication of the value range (grey bar) and average values from literature (black diamonds). B: Monetary value of ecosystem services (excl. food provisioning) and total economic value per land use (including food provisioning). The error bars represent the minimum and maximum estimates based on the lowest and highest values found in literature.

Fig 6. Global soybean market: soybean production in Brazil and Argentina, soybean export to EU-27 and soybean import by EU-27, 2008, in million metric tonnes [21].

Per land use type: area change 1961–2008 in million hectares [21] and socio-economic consequences in billion USD$/y (in 2008$). Graph: Annual environmental and socio-economic impact, average per time period, 1961–2008, billion USD$/y.

Fig 7

A: Balance between soybean income (‘Soybean’) and environmental damage from deforestation and grassland conversion (‘Deforestation’). The optimal trade-off between soybean expansion and deforestation is given by the maximum net societal benefit (black square), i.e. soybean income corrected for the cost of deforestation and grassland conversion. B: Consequences of increasing soybean income e.g. due to a population increase (Soybean” and Net societal benefit“). C: Consequences of taking into account the health cost of increasing meat consumption (Health cost and Net societal benefit³).