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by Hattie Ellis

Soya, or soy, is one of the world’s most important crops. Regarded as a miracle bean that is highly nutritious, it is also now a major cause of environmental damage. Yet many of us don’t realise how much of it we eat.

What is soya and when do I eat it?

The soya bean was first cultivated in China around 5000 years ago, and has long been made into products such as soy sauce, tofu and miso in East Asia. Unusually for a plant, it is a ‘complete protein’, containing all the essential amino acids we need for life. This means you don’t have to eat other protein-rich foods alongside it for an adequate diet, hence its popularity in vegetarian and vegan diets around the world.

In the past 50 years, soya’s growth as a worldwide commodity has soared with its use in industrial food systems. It is now everywhere, on shop shelves and in restaurants and takeaways, whether as an ingredient or as part of processing, for example as a cooking oil. Sometimes it’s in foods you don’t expect, such as bread, baked goods, smoothies, mayonnaise and chocolate.

But the vast majority of soya, an estimated , comes into the food chain through meat (especially chicken, pork and bacon), farmed fish, eggs and dairy, because soya is the major protein used in animal feed.

From all these sources, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) estimates we each eat, on average, of soya per year – that’s more than 1kg a week.

Soya production has more than doubled over the past 20 years, and South America is the fastest developing producer of the world’s supply, now with about half of global production. In the process, great swathes of unique species-rich places have been destroyed, and continue to be destroyed.

Two of the main places of concern, alongside the Amazon rainforest, are the species-rich savanna habitats of the Cerrado in Brazil, home to five percent of the world’s species, and the Gran Chaco in Argentina and Paraguay. “They can’t be replaced”, says Jonathan Gorman of the UK Sustainable Soya Initiative, a government-funded, industry-led group promoting sustainable soya supplies. “These are complicated eco-systems that are thousands of years old.”

Unsustainable soya will continue to have “serious negative consequences” for biodiversity, habitat, water-use and climate change, says the WWF. The pace of growth of soya is especially worrying, it argues, with production rising nearly 40 percent over the past 10 years as the demand for meat grows worldwide. The United Nations OECD-FAO forecast on commodities, , estimates a need for seven million more hectares of new land by 2028, almost twice the size of Switzerland, in order to grow soya for use in animal feeds alone.

Furthermore, soya production for animal feed can involve the use of “highly hazardous” pesticides, according to Will Schreiber, a sustainability expert at the consultancy that produced the WWF-UK and RSPB report .

How does soya farming affect us in the UK?

Around 4.2 million tonnes of soya is used by the UK every year. About 70 percent of it comes from South America, and almost all of this is from countries which the Riskier Business report identifies as being high or very high risk from an environmental perspective.

Although says about two-thirds of the UK’s soya is now either certified or verified deforestation-free, or from a lower risk area such as the United States, this leaves a third that could be of concern, most of which is thought to come from Argentina.

What about foods like soya milk, veggie burgers and soy sauce?

The majority of soya used directly in human food and drink comes from outside the controversial countries. That’s because South America produces soya from genetically modified (GM) seed. UK consumers have historically been wary of GM ingredients in food, which have to be declared on the label. Traceable non-GM soya tends to come from places such as China, India and Europe. Will Schreiber says it is “highly unlikely” that the soya in foods such as veggie burgers and soya milk comes from South America.

But soya that isn’t from the contested areas doesn’t necessarily have a clean bill of eco-health. Richard Young of the Sustainable Food Trust says there are problems with all soya grown as a monoculture (growing a single crop year after year on the same land), including damage to the soil and creating large fields “devoid of biodiversity”.

Soya bean oil is the second largest source of vegetable oil globally. Around three-quarters of the soya bean oil imported into the UK comes from the Netherlands, a global-trade hub, and about half of this comes from .

What can I see on the label?

Although you can’t tell the origin of soya from packaging, you can look on branded products for sustainability certification marks, such as from (the Round Table on Responsible Soya) and the organisation .

But one problem is that it can be difficult to see there is soya in your food at all. For example, lecithin, an emulsifier that can be used in chocolate and processed foods, may be made from soya. Vegetable oil sold in shops now has to state what the bottle contains, but you don’t know the type of oil used in catering. Soya oil derived from GM crops, the type most typically grown in Argentina and Brazil, by law must be , but this is hard to see when used in a fast-food outlet, café, canteen or restaurant.

The main issue is animal feed, and there is no requirement to include details about this on the label. However, feed is a factor in certain standards, such as organic, and you can look for such certification marks on packaging.

The search for sustainable soya alternatives

Retailers, food service providers such as fast-food chains and manufacturers have woken up to the urgent need to source responsible soya. There has been some progress since the that compared retailers on their policies. Some major UK retailers and food companies have now committed to using and selling only 100 percent sustainable soya, with a focus on protecting forests and valuable native vegetation. You can look on company websites for the latest information. “We’ve seen a real increase in interest in sustainability and where our food comes from, and that’s extremely powerful”, says Rose McCulloch from The UK Roundtable. Customers asking questions and using company websites help businesses to recognise their concern about this issue, she explains.

But challenges remain. Farmers are keen to grow this highly-profitable crop, supply chains can be difficult to trace, and global demand continues to increase. The solutions have to be reached by countries working together to ensure there’s a level playing field within a globalised food system.

Some think the world needs to move on from its soya habit. Alternative proteins can be used in feed, and consumers can turn to products from different livestock farming systems. The Soil Association argues for a ‘less but better’ meat strategy, with more grass-fed livestock, and supports a recent that shows how this could be achieved by 2050.

What diet changes would make the most impact?

Chicken and eggs have the heaviest soya footprint (per 100g) in terms of , followed by farmed salmon and pork. UK beef and dairy cows are more likely to be fed on grass for at least some of the time than in many other countries, but soya can be used in feeds, especially in intensive beef and dairy farming when the animals are kept inside for longer rather than grazing outside in the fields.

Look for products with organic or sustainability certification and for meat and dairy that is grass-fed and, to be sure of a soya-free diet, certified by the (‘grass-fed’ at present means just half the feed must be pasture).

The RTRS is a global certification standard for sustainable soya. Their will calculate an approximate breakdown of the hidden soya in your diet, including from sources such as farmed fish, eggs and chocolate, when you enter the amount of each food you eat per week. However, UK beef in particular, and some dairy, may have a lighter soya footprint than shown in the calculator, depending on the farming system, because it’s based on European figures.