Demand for Soy is Killing the Rainforest
Soy is being planted at such a rapid rate across so much land, environmental groups are worried that demand for the plant is going to destroy the Amazon rainforest. And if worldwide demand continues to multiply the way it has over the past decade, Brazilian officials will likely give in to economic pressure to continue clearing forests in order to plant more of the crop.
But before you cackle at the outrageous irony of treehugging, tofu-eating environmentalists unwittingly destroying the rainforest, consider this: the bigger problem is actually (drumroll please) factory farmed meat, eggs and milk. You see, only a small percentage of the soy grown worldwide is actually eaten directly by humans. The vast majority of it is used to feed livestock. (Biofuel production makes up only a small fraction of the soybeans grown in Brazil.)
Details from Euractiv:
“Some 3,000 years ago, farmers in eastern China domesticated the soybean. In 1765, the first soybeans were planted in North America. Today the soybean occupies more US cropland than wheat. And in Brazil, where it spread even more rapidly, the soybean is invading the Amazon rainforest,” writes Lester R. Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute, in a December commentary.
“During the closing decades of the last century, Japan was the leading soybean importer, at nearly five million tons per year. As recently as 1995, China was essentially self-sufficient in soybeans, producing and consuming roughly 13 million tons of soybeans a year. Then the dam broke as rising incomes enabled many of China’s 1.3 billion people to move up the food chain, consuming more meat, milk, eggs and farmed fish. By 2009 China was consuming 55 million tons of soybeans, of which 41 million tons were imported, accounting for 75% of its soaring consumption.
Since 1950 the world soybean harvest has climbed from 17 million tons to 250 million tons, a gain of more than 14-fold. This contrasts with growth in the world grain harvest of less than fourfold. Soybeans are the second-ranking US crop after corn, and they totally dominate agriculture in both Brazil and Argentina.
But this is what happens when we humans latch on to a single plant for so many uses. What we need is more diversity in our diets, more emphasis on eating what grows naturally in our own regions – and less meat.
Link Euractiv
Photo credit: LearnAboutButterflies.com
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This entry was posted on Friday, January 8th, 2010 at 11:00 am and is filed under Consciousness, Green Living, Health, Science, Spirituality. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
