The lost innocence of the soy burger

All soy in the world would be needed to replace the proteins that we now get from animals. Therefore, the companies that market vegan soy products should not claim that they are not part of the environmental problems linked to soy cultivation. The global soybean complex is sick regardless if the beans are used for feed, food or fuel. 

I am neither a fan of industrial agriculture nor the large scale soybean production which is taking place in the US, Brazil and Argentina. And I am vehemently opposed to the agriculture model by which large animal operations in Europe import soy beans from Brazil to feed pigs or chicken (to a lesser extent to dairy cows and even less to cattle destined for meat). 

However, when proponents of a vegan diet promote soybeans as the main substitute for meat, and at the same time argue that the environmental issues (deforestation, GM soybeans, pesticides etc.) around soybean production is almost uniquely linked to its function as animal feed, I find that it is appropriate to correct that misconception.  

I have done the math based on the database of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, FAOStat. That database is not flawless but it is the best there is for global data on crops. 

The total soy supply 2013 was 267 million tons. Of this 11 million tons was kept for seed, which leaves us with 256 million tons. Of this, 17 million was used directly as feed and 11 million tons directly for food. 227 tons are processed in soy mills, where they produce 179 tons of soy meal and 42 million tons of soybean oil and around 2 million tons of soy lecithin, a ubiquitous food additive. Of the 179 tons of soybean meal just 3 tons are used for human consumption. Of the 42 million tons of soybean oil 24 million are used for human consumption and the rest is for industrial use and biodiesel. 

If we sum up and classify the various streams of use for feed, for food and for industrial use it looks like this.

Use of global soy bean harvest 2013, million tons
	Feed	Food	Industry & biodiesel
Whole beans	17	11
Soy meal	176	3
Soy lecithin		2
Soy oil		24	18
Total	193	40	18
Percent of total	77 %	16 %	7 %
Source: FAOSTAT, Gunnar Rundgren, gardenearth.blogspot.com

Thus, approximately 16% of the weight of soybeans is used for human consumption. However, if we consider the relative value of the products from the soybean production things look a bit different. Soybean oil has a much higher value than soybean meal; it represents only 18% of the weight but 35% of the value*. If we take that into consideration as well as the price of soy lecithin we find that approximately 25% of the soybeans are used for food production.

*

What would happen if we all quit eating animal proteins and replaced them with soy products? The global consumption of protein 2013 was 81 gram per capita and day, which represent 212 million tons protein. Of this 84 million tons were of animal origin (the rest thus of vegetable origin, mainly grains, pulses and tubers, read more in “Where does the protein come from?”) The protein content of the soy which today is used for feed is around 88 million tons. If we were to replace all animal proteins with soybeans we would need the same quantity of soy beans that are grown today. A vegan diet based on soy as a major protein source would thus require the same acreage of soy beans that are grown today.

*

Objections?

Clearly this is not a defense for industrial livestock or for soy bean mono-cropping. It is also not, in itself, an argument against veganism. In many parts of the world there could be grown and consumed other crops for protein, such as lentils, potatoes, peas. People can also eat more grain, which they did in most parts of the world earlier. Of course that also applies to livestock rearing. There are mainly economic (and political) reasons that farmers in Europe import soy beans for feed. It is not lack of land in Europe that cause the imports; Europe has retired 100 million hectare of arable land because it was been more economic to buy feed.

This discussion focus protein, but in my view the supply of fat is a bigger challenge for vegan diets. The share of fat of animal origin (45%) in the global diet is even higher than the share of protein. In addition, most of the vegetable oil production is based on crops (soybeans, rape seed, sunflower, and to a lesser extent palm oil) where the by-products are used as animal feed. If we were to replace all animal fat with vegetable oils, oil palm and soybean production would most likely expand even more than today. Read more:  Where shall the fat come from?

I make this calculation to correct misconceptions about vegan soybean products. In a similar way I have shown that the frequent argument that meat eating is driving deforestation is enormously exaggerated. I make them to refute erroneous arguments against animals, but I don’t make them in defense of industrial animal production.  In my view it is counterproductive to make general statements about the merits of “animals” or “plants”. We need to look at what kinds of production works well in the many different climatic and ecological conditions there are in the world. In my view, the starting point is local, regenerative, production and consumption.

The global soybean complex is sick regardless if the beans are used for feed, food or fuel.  

*In lifecycle assessment it is common practice to use the relative value of the various streams to distribute the environmental impact.

Where shall the fat come from?

The four most important agriculture export streams, in value, in the world in 2011 were US$17.6 billion soybeans from United States, palm oil from Malaysia for US$ 17.5 billion,  US$ 17.3 billion palm oil from Indonesia and Brazilian soybeans for US$ 16.3 billion. Notably all four streams are for two oil crops both doubling also as excellent protein feed stock. The consumption of vegetable oils demonstrates the most rapid expansion of all major food categories and they contribute 10 percent of all food calories compared to 5 percent 45 years earlier. The global increase in per capita vegetable oil consumption has been 5.2 percent annually[i]. Most of this growth is attributable to two oils, palm oil and soy bean oils. Earlier, fat and oils were a rich man’s food in a similar way as sugar was a rich man’s food until the large-scale sugar plantations were established. Now with extremely large scale soybean and palm oil plantations price of vegetable oil has gone down considerably and calories from vegetable oil is almost as affordable as calories from grains and other traditional staples. In 100g of palm oil there are 880 calories while 100 g of whole wheat has 370 calories. Palm oil price has been between 2 and 4 times higher than wheat the last decades[ii].

In 1966, soy oil passed butter to become the world's leading edible oil or fat. In 1982 palm oil was in second place worldwide, sunflower seed oil in third, butter (fat content) in fourth, and rapeseed (canola) oil in fifth, all far behind soy oil[iii]. Of the total vegetable oil production of 161 million tons 2012/13 palm oil and palm kernel oil (both from the same oil palm) contributed almost 40 percent and soybeans 27 percent, meaning that two thirds of all vegetable oil comes form those two crops. As we can see from the table only rapeseed and sunflower oil play an important role in the global picture[iv]. Palm oil production is also without competition most area efficient, often reaching 5 tons oil per hectare. This is ten times more than the typical oil yield of rapeseed, sunflower and soybeans. 

Palm	35%
Soybean	27%
Rapeseed	15%
Sunflower seed	9%
Palm Kernel	4%
Cottonseed	3%
Peanut	3%
Coconut	2%
Olive	2%
USDA FAS, Major Vegetable Oils: World Supply and Distribution

In comparison total world production of butter was some 9 million tons[v], which is more than total coconut and olive production, but still rather marginal. Today, in average 1.3 kg butter and ghee per person is consumed in the world ranging from almost nothing in China to 2.7 kg in India[vi] and an average of 2.8 kg in developed countries. Developed countries also consume considerable quantities of cream, 2.2 kg per person[vii]. Almost 6 million tons of lard and 7 million tons of tallow are produced. Animal fats are also consumed as part of the meat itself, and much animal fat is consumed in other dairy products as well. But by and large animal fat plays a minor role for our food fat supply.

As a crop oil palm has many good properties, in particular that it is a perennial tree crop with high yields. Nevertheless, the rapid expansion has been accompanied by environmental and social damage. This include the loss of tropical rainforests due to land clearance and conversion to plantations (I have personally experienced how mainland Malaysia was covered by a haze caused by the burning), the destruction of wetland ecosystems following drainage, the pollution of waterways by eroded soil, the improper disposal of mill waste, and the contamination of rivers due to leaching of nutrients and pesticides when applied improperly. The expansion has reduced wildlife habitats and oil palm expansion is considered as a main threat to Orangutans as well as Sumatran Tiger. Not only are trees cut down to clear for oil palms, but a lot of the plantations are made on peat lands, which are mostly made up of organic matter. When drained the organic matter breaks down and emits very high quantities of CO2[viii]. This makes Indonesia the third largest green house gas emitter in the world – eighty percent of the emissions are from deforestation and land use changes[ix].

In France, Belgium, Austria, United States of America, Luxembourg, Italy, Switzerland and  Spain per person consumption of fat is more than 150g, while in Bangladesh, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Rwanda and Burundi it is less than 30g[x]. Fat is a scarce resource globally, and the global trade represents almost forty percent of the production, a higher trade share than for any other major food commodity. China, the European Union and India are huge net importers of vegetable oils, and in Africa more than half of all oil used is imported, which is particularly disturbing considering that oil crops could do well in big parts of Africa and that the oil palm originates there. Soybean oil and palm oil provides most oils and they are both produced in large scale extractive systems. Fat is high energy and the highest yields of fat will come from tropical crops as they grow under energy abundant conditions, i.e. a lot of sun. In cold climates fat is a real problem. Butter from grass-fed cows and fat from pigs fed on a combination of waste and grain can produce as much fat per hectare as soybeans or rape seed[xi]. Which also was the reason for why in temperate climates those sources of fat has always been very important. If we consider that for the major oil crops there is a rest product which preferably is used as animal feeds, we see that the vegetable oil and animal fat production to some extent is mutually supportive.

(extracted from the book Global Eating Disorder - the cost of cheap food, forthcoming)

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[i] Globalization and Food Consumption, Jacinto F. Fabiosa in The Oxford Handboook of The Economics of Food Consumtion and Policy, 2011

[ii] Svenska kaloritabeller och Index Mundi

[iii] Shurtleff, William & Akiko Aoyagi 2007 History of Soybeans and Soyfoods: 1100 B.C. to the 1980s, http://www.soyinfocenter.com/HSS/soybean_crushing1.php accessed 1 January 2014

[iv] USDA FAS 2014, Major Vegetable Oils: World Supply and Distribution, accessed 5 Jan 2014

[v] USDA FAS 2014, Butter Production and Consumption: Summary For Selected Countries, accessed 5 Jan 2014

[vi] Gerosa, Stefano and Jakob Skoet 2012, Milk availability, Trends in production and, demand and medium-term outlook, FAO, ESA Working paper No. 12-01

[vii] Gerosa, Stefano and Jakob Skoet 2012, Milk availability, Trends in production and, demand and medium-term outlook, FAO, ESA Working paper No. 12-01

[viii] Obidzinski, K., R. Andriani, H. Komarudin, and A. Andrianto. 2012. Environmental and social impacts of oil palm plantations and their implications for biofuel production in Indonesia. /Ecology and Society/ *17*(1): 25. http://dx.doi.org/10.5751/ES-04775-170125

[ix] Norway-Indonesia REDD+ fact sheet

[x] FAO Statistical Division 2014, D-Protein-Cons.country-Groups Country groups 1990-92 1995-97 2000-02 2005-07

[xi] Fairlie, Simon, Can Britain Feed Itslef?, the Land 4 Winter 2008-8