Environmental consequences of increasing international demand for raw material: Soybeans

The global demand of soybeans has been rising rapidly throughout the past decades. This is due to the increasing world population and various of factors. Soybean production has risen from 17 million tonnes to 250 million tonnes from 1950 to 2009. Here are the 3 main purpose of soybeans. 1st is consumed directly as food like tofu, meat substitutes,etc. This only takes about 10% of total production of soybeans. 2nd is used to extract oil, which takes up to 20%. The 3rd one takes about 70% of total soybeans being produced, which is used as meals for livestock and poultry. However the question is where are theses 250 million tonnes of soybean being produced, certainly it requires a lot of lands to produce this much in a year. This article will be focusing on the causes of rapid increase of demand, how the production are keeping up with demand, and the consequences of it.

Besides the fact increasing population increases the demand of soybeans, there's other factor influencing it. The biggest cause of rapid increase in demand is that the discovery which combing soybeans with grains significantly increase the efficiency of livestock and poultry convert grains into animal protein. This reason made soybeans become one of the world's leading crops alongside with rice, corn and wheat. As well as increasing income in China, one of the most populated country, more and more people are able to eat meat, means the moving up of the food chains. Due to this reason, soybeans are dominant agriculture in some country, and the biggest exports for that country. This will driven country's economy, increasing quality of life of the country.

However, humans decided that the deforestation is the only way to keep up with the demand of soybeans, and there's not enough land to grow soybeans which can keep up with the demand. Increasingly areas of land devastation to soybeans production is having serious environmental impacts. Especially in the Amazon rain forest, where the impacts on the biodiversity has been very devastating. For example, in Brazil now has 200 million cattle about 1/10 of the country's available agricultural land, about 1/3 of these land were originally part of Amazon rain forest.

The consequences of deforestation led to the huge impact environmentally, especially in the biodiversity of the area. In some areas there are certain species able to survive in that environment, but we, humans are keep destroying those precious gifts we have on the earth. For example in Argentina, one of the largest soybean exporter after USA and Russia. They have one of the world's great grasslands called Pampas, with flat prairie and deep fertile top soil. Traditionally, cattle rearing was dominant in this area. However, as the rapid increase of soybean demands, it replace from cattle rearing to crop production (soybeans and corn). According to the Argentine Rural Society, 10 million hectares of Pampas have been ploughed up in the last 15 years. The problem is where should the cattle go? They were forced to do the harsher swamps and scrubland in the north, where cattle has to contend with the droughts, flooding, poisonous snakes, vampire bats, even piranhas. In 2007 the estimated cattle died either through starvation or infected wounds from piranhas bites were 40,000. Those environmental change that those cattle are not able to adapt, causing the huge population loss. This is the serious threat not only to them, to the biodiversity of the planet. Yet, because of this reason it has led to the improvements to the technology, now there are scientists invented the system of growing crops without any soil required, and able to to planted inside buildings, and trying to lower it's cost .

Finally to conclude, if we can decrease the demand of soybeans, then maybe we will be able have less environmental impacts. By first, decrease in exports or imports of soybeans, and find the substitutes of soybeans, instead of using all soybeans, it can be using half of the amount we use originally, and the other half use the substitutes. Also, to keep up with the demand of soybeans within the country, instead of importing from other countries. That it would decrease the green house gas emissions produced during the transporting stage, but under the condition of growing soybeans when it is it's season. The environmental impacts caused from deforestation are consequential, if we were not to warn the others and spread the words, it would just only fasten the rate of global warming and climate change. Globalisation risen the world economy allows more trade to happen, but the huge demands for the raw material increased the environmental impacts. Maybe globalisation shouldn't happen in the first place.