Authors: Aditya Agarwal, Franziska Gehrig, Simona Lupșa, Eva Wehrle
Challenge-based Project I (2025/2026)
Societal Partner: Bart Kuiter, AMS Institute
"Through which mechanisms do Dutch imports of soy contribute to monoculture expansion in Brazil, and how does this expansion affect risks to food security?"
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.