Europe's stubborn addiction to deforested Argentinian soy

[Judi Lynn]

Soybeans from deforested areas of the Argentine Chaco continue to end up in the animal feed on Europe's farms. The EU's promised crackdown keeps getting delayed.

Published on 15 January 2024 at 17:15
Stefano Valentino
Translated by Harry Bowden


To feed the animals that satisfy Europe’s steadily rising consumption of meat and dairy products in Europe, farmers rely heavily on imported cereals from Latin America, primarily soy. After Brazil, Argentina is the European Union's second largest supplier of soybean products, covering 21% (7.7 million tonnes in 2021) of the 27 member states' total consumption. Because of its high protein value, soy accounts for up to 25% of the feed given to industrial livestock.

Soy, mostly genetically modified, arrives in the EU both processed into meal or cake and in the form of unprocessed soybeans which are then processed into flour in European plants. Argentina is historically the world's largest exporter of the processed meal (though Brazil is likely to overtake it in 2023). Because of its high protein value, soy meal accounts for up to 25 percent of the feed given to industrial livestock.

The cultivation of soy is devastating for forest ecosystems, likely more so than any other product recently imported to Europe. The EU is in second place (after China) for soy imports worldwide (and in third place after China and India for all commodities whose production is responsible for deforestation). Between the raw soybeans and the processed soybean meal of cake, including those specifically used for animal feed, Europe imported more than 580 billion tonnes in the ten years until September 2023, according to Eurostat data.

In particular, the EU is the largest importer of soybeans from Chaco, an ecologically sensitive region of northern Argentina. The Chaco exported 356,000 tonnes to Europe in 2019, accounting for more than 50% the area's total exports. With its major contribution to global demand, Europe has thus prompted producers to deforest large areas of this Argentinian region to make room for soybeans destined as animal feed for meat production.

Chaco is in third place among regions supplying soybeans to the European Union, after Amazonia and Cerrado (in Brazil). These latter areas, however, are mainly oriented towards the Chinese market.

In answer to the disastrous environmental impact of tropical soybean farming, in 2022 the EU passed a new regulation (called EUDR, European Union Deforestation Regulation). This bans the produce of deforested land from entering the European market. Alas, the ban's implementation has been postponed until 2025. Together with legal loopholes arising from lobbying by the timber industry and its allies in some EU governments, this has left a number of forests (in Europe and beyond) languishing at the mercy of the profit motive.

More:
https://voxeurop.eu/en/europe-addiction-deforested-argentinian-soy/