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Diets full of soy

Average European consumes over 60kg of soy a year – mainly through animal feed
Katie Hill - Editor-in-Chief, My Green Pod
An aerial view of a red combine harvesting a soybean field

Europeans are unwittingly wiping out forests across the world.

According to new research, the average European consumes 60.6kg of soy per year, the majority of which can be linked to deforested areas and converted savannahs and grasslands in South America.

This means that contributing to the destruction of precious natural ecosystems is always just one meal away.

Our ‘indirect’ soy consumption

Commissioned by WWF, the ‘Mapping the European Soy Supply Chain’ report shows 90% of the soy Europeans eat is not listed as an ingredient. Instead, it is consumed indirectly because soy is the main animal feed used to produce meat, eggs, fish and dairy products.

In 2020, the average European consumed 237 eggs, 117kg of various dairy products, 58kg of pork, poultry, beef and other meat and 2kg of farmed fish.

In some cases, such as for chicken and salmon, the amount of soy animal feed is almost equal to that of the food produced.

95 grams of soy are needed to produce 100 grams of farmed salmon, and 96 grams of soy for 100 grams of chicken breast.

‘We need to open our eyes to the impact that the European Union and its consumption have not only on forests but also on grasslands and savannahs – we cannot support the destruction of invaluable nature or peoples livelihoods for our dinner.’

ANKE SCHULMEISTER-OLDENHOVE
Senior forest policy officer at WWF’s European Policy Office

Calls for a ‘loophole-free law’

EU decision-makers are currently discussing an EU deforestation law to curb the footprint on EU consumption.
 
Presented last November, the European Commission’s legislative proposal contains many strong elements.

However, it would limit the scope of the new law to forests, postponing a potential inclusion of other ecosystems by at least two years.

As a result, the existing pressure of agricultural production on savannahs and grasslands is ignored and there is a risk that new expansion of soy production will be shifted from forests to these other ecosystems. 
 

EU Member States are currently discussing their position on the new law, with an orientation debate between environment ministers scheduled to take place on 17 March.

‘To ensure that our daily food is nature destruction-free, the law needs to cover, from the start, other natural ecosystems, too. So, it is now crucial that we, as citizens, urge our governments to stand up for nature and support a strong, loophole-free law! One that includes all the important habitats at stake.’

ANKE SCHULMEISTER-OLDENHOVE
Senior forest policy officer at WWF’s European Policy Office

The problem with soy

We have lost 68% of wildlife in the past 50 years, much of this due to the way we produce our food.

Soy production in South America has nearly tripled in the last decades and global production is predicted to double again by 2050.

But South America is also home to the Amazon, the Pantanal and the Cerrado, making it a biodiversity hotspot.

1,600 species of mammals, birds and reptiles have been identified just in the Cerrado. Among these are familiar animals such as macaws, anteaters, armadillos and jaguars, all threatened with extinction.
  

#Together4Forests

Through the #Together4Forests campaign, WWF and 160 other environmental NGOs mobilised 1.2 million people to demand a strong new EU law in December 2020.

Following this, the Commission proposed a regulation to mimimise EU-driven deforestation and forest degradation.

Since then, support for the campaign has grown to almost 200 NGOs. However, the battle is not won yet as important ecosystems such as savannahs, grasslands and peatlands are left unprotected by the European Commission’s proposal.

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