Soy, alongside cattle, palm oil, and wood products are the main commodities driving tropical deforestation globally, concentrated in different countries around the world. Each year, thousands of square kilometers of vegetation are destroyed for the intensive cultivation of soybeans - a crop of which approximately 80 percent is used for animal feed worldwide. This destruction of natural ecosystems is particularly pronounced in Brazil’s Cerrado, Gran Chaco and Pantanal regions, as well as the Amazon, even though the latter is under the effect of a moratorium which excludes from commercial channels all suppliers who have been growing soybeans on recently deforested plots since 2006.
According to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Brazil is by far the world's biggest soybean producer. In the early 1980s, Brazil harvested around 14 million metric tons of soy and production boomed due to the development of new cultivation techniques and the use of pesticides, with the country now projected to have a harvest of 163 million tons for 2023/24. The second and third biggest producers are the United States and Argentina. In 2020, the world's soybean production area reached over 120 million hectares - more than France, Spain and the Netherlands combined. More than half of this area was in Brazil.
Deforestation is not the only problem caused by soybean cultivation. The use of glyphosate, a pesticide classified as a probable human carcinogen, is also a concern.
