Resilience Erosion in Global Feed Systems: Dutch Demand and Brazilian Soy Monoculture

Key Findings

• Current Dutch diets require 312 m² of soy feed land per person per year; shifting to a 50/50 plant–animal protein split cuts this by over a third, to 201 m².

• The Netherlands is the world's top soy trade intermediary by betweenness centrality. Global soy flows increasingly concentrate through a handful of trade routes, raising systemic fragility.

• Deforestation in the Cerrado and Amazon triggers self-reinforcing climate feedbacks: reduced evapotranspiration, longer dry seasons, and heat stress that further pressures yields and expansion.

• The system is structurally efficient but brittle: tight coupling between meat demand, monoculture expansion, and concentrated trade makes it highly vulnerable to climate or geopolitical shocks.