One week before the third meeting of the Roundtable on Responsible Soy (RTRS) in Buenos Aires, Argentina [1], the Global Forest Coalition, a worldwide coalition of Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and Indigenous Peoples Organizations [2], have published an open call to NGOs to withdraw themselves from the RTRS process [3]. The Coalition states that by supporting the roundtable, NGOs are legitimizing the expansion of large-scale soy monocultures that lead to massive deforestation, pesticide contamination, rural depopulation, malnutrition and violent land conflicts. It calls upon NGOs to instead address the over-consumption of products like meat and transport fuels in continents like Europe, which is the main destination of South American soy.
"It is not coherent to increase export levies to halt the 'soyfication' of our country while there is continued support for the production of agrofuels, taking into account that there are 9.000.000 hectares of additional soy production needed to supply the agrodiesel plants that are currently projected," points out Elba Stancich of the NGO Taller Ecologista in Argentina. "The continued support for the current agricultural model forms the main obstacle to another type of agriculture, as it obliges small and medium-size farmers to adopt non-sustainable production methods based on competition and industrialization. Instead, we need family farms that foster the sustainable use of our common wealth for the production of quality food for local consumption."
"Soy monoculture covers 21 million hectares in Brazil, the second largest world producer and exporter of soybean, soybean oil and soybean meal, and the largest exporter of value added soy as poultry, pork and beef. Soy also accounts for 80% of the raw material used to produce biodiesel in Brazil to date, " said Camila Moreno from Terra Di Direitos in Brazil. She adds: "Soy is indisputably recognized as the main driving force of deforestation over the Amazon and Cerrado and a root cause of the escalating rural violence and human rights violations associated to land issues in our country. Soy expansion and soy greed has allowed Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) illegally into the country, smuggling seeds from Argentina. That gives precedent to the legalization of other GMOs leading to peasant and family farm indebtedness in southern Brazil."
The standards for "responsible" soy as currently proposed do not even exclude genetically modified soy, despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of consumers in Europe rejects genetically modified crops.
Elias Diaz Pena of Sobrevivencia in Paraguay adds: "We entirely reject the irresponsible insistence on such an oxymoron as sustainable soy. Soy is the cement of an all western way of life and diet, and as we see all around, there is no criteria but profit to its expansion. Even more scandalous than soy's devastating effects over biodiversity and traditional food cultures is the hypocrisy of northern consumers and their governments that refuse to accept the bare truth."
According to Dr. Miguel Lovera, the chairperson of the Global Forest Coalition, "The support of civil society organisations to this Roundtable is legitimizing a corporate-dominated process that attempts to give a green veneer to further soy expansion in South America and other regions instead of promoting more sustainable consumption patterns that would take away the need for further expansion." Lovera, a Paraguayan agronomist, adds: "Certification processes are not able to address the indirect impacts of soy production, such as deforestation caused by cattle ranching and other agricultural activities that are displaced by soy monocultures. We need a dramatic reduction of soy monocultures, land reform and a country-wide deforestation ban here, as well as a drastic reduction in the consumption of meat, diary and agrodiesel in the countries addicted to soy."