SEEING THE WOODS FOR THE TREES

Soy is the second biggest agricultural driver of deforestation worldwide. Beef is at the number one spot, followed by soy, palm oil and wood. Soy production has more than doubled since 1997 yet 70-75% of all soy is used as feed for livestock including chickens, pigs, beef and farmed fish. In 2019, Greenpeace challenged 23 food sector companies to demonstrate that the soy used as animal feed in their supply chains was not driving deforestation. The results, published in Greenpeace’s “Winging It” report last month, revealed that none of these companies were tracking the amount of soy in its supply chain or whether it was deforestation-free. But what can we do? We need to eat less meat and dairy, consume soy directly, rather than through animals and only source soy from suppliers that are demonstrably deforestation-free. We need to put pressure on companies to be transparent about their soy sourcing as we know from the palm oil fiasco that media can quickly put pressure on companies to change.