Soy to the World

Moo-ve over! With climate change, getting fed will get more competitive.

Farming in the epoch of the Anthropocene is like trying to play chess while someone randomly rearranges the pieces every few moves. Here in the United States of Agribusiness, we've managed to turn food into everything but, well, food. Rather than prepare for climate chaos, we are feeding its growth with bovine hormones, ammonium fertilizers, and deforestation.

Biking mornings in rural Tennessee I felt the unusually abrupt shift of seasons. Summer is not over, we may still see some triple-digit days, but there was frost on the soybean fields for three mornings and after the heat returned the leaves were browning and being cast into the last winds of Hurricane Francine.

This got me thinking about how the extreme weather we are seeing all around the world will impact farmers here at home when there are many more triple-digit days, erratic rain patterns, and late or early frosts that come just after planting or just before harvest.

In my state, we've gone from half a million quaint family farms in 1929 to a mere 63,105 today. Progressive farming, they call it. I see it more as a game of agricultural Monopoly where the prize is a monoculture wasteland with lots of little plastic houses and the losers are, well, all of us—go directly to famine, do not pass go. Unsustainable conversion of forests, wetlands and grasslands to farmland is endangering wildlife and ecosystems, displacing traditional, local, multigenerational livelihoods with mechanized soy and cornfields.

There was a paradigm shift following the Dust Bowl in the 1930s, then several resets from small family farms to big agribusiness as loans and dispossessions racked and ruined with better-living-through-high-priced-chemistry.

Tennessee had 235,000 farms in 1945, falling to 122,000 by 1960. The remnant small farms have declined by 28% just since 2002. Even in relatively steep terrain, you’ll find mile-wide fields of corn or soy where once there might have been fence and hedgerow smallholdings of mixed animal, grain and vegetable farms. And a lot more hardwood forest.

By the 1930s, erosion was a serious problem in the Tennessee Valley thanks to hillside farming. The land was getting bare and dusty. Yields were dropping. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s response was the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA), crafted by his Secretary of Agriculture, Henry A. Wallace. In 1933 they added the Tennessee Valley Authority to the New Deal and TVA introduced practices like terracing hillsides and planting legumes to rejuvenate soil. TVA's cheap, renewable hydroelectricity allowed rural farms to buy labor-saving devices and improve the quality of rural living. Flood control expanded the lowland acreage that could be safely planted and phosphate production in Muscle Shoals made fertilizer cheaper than a politician's promise, and there were many of those. Factory-farmed eggs outcompeted the free-range farmers and gave us all higher cholesterol.

How did the USDA in the 1930s come to adopt what today would be called regenerative farming? Wallace was the agricultural messiah. He grew up on a farm on the outskirts of Des Moines, did his farm chores and developed a passion. He picked up chemistry and genetics at Iowa State College in 1910 where his father was a professor and co-founder of the American Farm Bureau. Between 1913 and 1933, young Wallace continuously experimented with breeding high-yielding strains of corn, which eventually became the company named Pioneer. By 1930, he was speaking and writing about the importance of reducing tariff barriers and increasing the volume of world trade as a means to address surpluses. That drew the attention of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Wallace was brought in as Secretary of Agriculture from 1933 to 1940, the Dust Bowl repair years. Roosevelt then picked him for his running mate in 1940, and he served as the 33rd Vice President and part of the War Cabinet from ’41 to ’45. As Vice President, and later Secretary of Commerce into the Truman administration, he was kept traveling as an emissary of foreign affairs. His defeat as a Progressive third-party candidate for President in 1948 was the country’s loss.

Now climate change is coming for the same land. Yields are dropping faster than Donald Trump’s ratings, and our solution? More of the same, but with bigger tractors and combines. Corn and soybean yields doubled since 1970, but extreme weather events have now reversed that trend. Soybean yields are expected to decline by approximately 3% by 2036 and that may be optimistic. Corn yields are already decreasing up to 14.5% in central states. A one-degree C increase can reduce yields by 50%.

You noted that the cost of food was increasing, but so far, that was nothing more than a minor inconvenience. As a Middle-Class Westerner, food never was a large fraction of your budget. The increase in food prices just made a dent in your disposable income.

But food prices keep rising. And they are now large enough that you can’t avoid noticing the effects. It is not just your disposable income that’s being affected. You have to cut on some foods you used to be able to afford. Less meat, for instance. Then, you discover you can’t afford the fancy foods labeled “natural” and “additive-free.” The Sunday trip to the restaurant with your family suddenly seems to have become something of the past. Too expensive. You also notice that many restaurants are closing, especially those fast food joints that once offered cheap food that even the poor could afford.

Your checking account now goes into the red by the end of the month. You have to be careful while you wait for your next paycheck to come. You have to buy smaller packages; a pint of milk, rather than a quarter gallon. It is not that you go hungry during the last days of the month, but you have to be careful.

Then, your credit card won’t let you get more into the red, and during the last days of the month you just can’t buy anything. Those days, the kids are whining that they are hungry and there is nothing they like in the refrigerator. Not even anything you like. A dinner on stale bread only? It is the best you can do on some days. You try to discuss this matter on social media, but you are told that your post goes against the community rules and is erased.

Then, the switch occurs. Food scarcity ceases to be a background problem that everyone tends to ignore. It suddenly becomes the centerpiece of the daily news. Words such as “famine,” “denutrition,” and “starvation” are no longer taboo. The government spokespeople openly say that drastic measures are necessary to fight the new threat to Westerners’ well-being. It is caused by evil foreigners who hate our freedom, and so they make it difficult to supply food to our great nation. However, the government is working hard to solve the problem by increasing military spending and developing new genetically modified food. We have to trust science. A solution will be found soon.

—Ugo Bardi, The Day When Food Ran Out

Of course, what Wallace understood of regenerative farming in the 1930s and what we know today are worlds apart. Wallace had only short-term knowledge of the negative impacts of agricultural chemicals. He could not know what damage fertilizer dependence would do to both small farmer economics and the soil microbiome. He knew nothing of nicactinoids and bee pollinators or PFAS in animal manure. Permaculture had not been invented, P.A. Yeoman was still experimenting with keyline, Alan Savory was tending elephants, and biochar was known only by expeditions into the Amazon.

Returning to my bike ride, I pondered what these mile-wide fields would do if they were truly managed sustainably and made climate-resilient. Firstly, they would likely not be monocultures but rather three sister patches of corn, beans and squash. While an acre of these soils produces on average 50 bushels of soy or 200 bushels of corn, after oil extraction 97-98% of U.S. soybean meal is used for animal feed and the majority of corn goes to livestock feed and ethanol. In the US, around 40% of the domestic corn crop and over 60% of domestic soybean production are used as livestock feed, the majority poultry (48%) and swine (26%). If instead those grains were fed to humans directly, they’d support six to ten times more people.

Soybeans are a high-quality protein source for humans, containing all nine essential amino acids. The protein digestibility-corrected amino acid score (PDCAAS) for soy protein is comparable to that of meat, milk and egg proteins.

Soy-based foods are consumed in a wide variety of forms across the globe. Traditional Asian soyfoods like tofu, tempeh, and natto have gained popularity worldwide as plant-based protein sources. Tofu, made from curdled soymilk, is used in both savory and sweet dishes. Ferments such as tempeh, miso, and soy sauce add depth of flavor to many cuisines. Edamame, or immature soybeans, are enjoyed as a snack or added to salads and stir-fries. Soymilk serves as a dairy alternative in beverages, baked goods, and other recipes. Textured soy protein, which can be produced at village scale with a simple extruder press, is used to create meat analogs. Soy flour and protein isolates are incorporated into baked goods and protein bars. Soy yogurt and cheese provide dairy-free alternatives for those avoiding animal products. Soynut butter offers a peanut-free spread option. Modern food technology has also led to the development of soy-based meat alternatives like burgers, sausages, and nuggets that closely mimic the taste and texture of animal products. Soy sauce and tamari are ubiquitous condiments in many cuisines. Additionally, soy lecithin is widely used as an emulsifier in processed foods. From traditional fermented products to innovative meat alternatives, soy-based foods have become integrated into diets around the world, offering versatile plant-based protein options for various culinary applications and dietary preferences.

Turns out, those soybeans we've been force-feeding to Bessie could actually feed us directly. Who knew? Tofu, tempeh, edamame - suddenly, we're all linguistic geniuses in the language of legumes. It's as if we've discovered that the magic beans Jack traded for his cow could actually make a pretty decent burger. Jack got the better deal.

So here we are, at the crossroads of climate catastrophe and dietary revolution. On the one side, we have fields of corn and soy stretching to the horizon, destined to become everything but dinner. On the other, a future where we cut out the middleman (or middle-pig, as it were) and eat the plants ourselves. It's a radical concept, I know. Almost as radical as thinking we could keep pumping chemicals into our soil without consequences. So, while extreme weather events like droughts and mid-summer freezes coupled with high temperatures and Biblical floods will undoubtedly spike food prices and roil global markets in the years to come, there are ways to adjust if we wise up and start learning.

As I pedaled away from those frost-kissed fields, I couldn't help but wonder: Where is Henry Wallace when we need him? Probably rolling in his grave, which, given our current farming practices, is likely the most sustainable rotation we've seen in years.

References

Abafe E., and K. Makwana, Soybeans for Global Nutrition, a Numbers Story. Sustainable Nutrition Initiative, Aug 19, 2024

Dilawari, R., Kaur, N., Priyadarshi, N., Prakash, I., Patra, A., Mehta, S., Singh, B., Jain, P. and Islam, M.A., 2022. Soybean: A key player for global food security. In Soybean improvement: physiological, molecular and genetic perspectives (pp. 1-46). Cham: Springer International Publishing.

Goddard, D., Did Dust Bowl’s Ravages End in the 1940s? New Study Says No, UT News, Oct 28, 2015.

Guo, B., Sun, L., Jiang, S., Ren, H., Sun, R., Wei, Z., Hong, H., Luan, X., Wang, J., Wang, X. and Xu, D., 2022. Soybean genetic resources contributing to sustainable protein production. Theoretical and Applied Genetics, 135(11), pp.4095-4121.

Messina, M., Duncan, A., Messina, V., Lynch, H., Kiel, J. and Erdman Jr, J.W., 2022. The health effects of soy: A reference guide for health professionals. Frontiers in nutrition, 9, p.970364.

Mourtzinis, S., Ortiz, B.V. and Damianidis, D., 2016. Climate change and ENSO effects on Southeastern US climate patterns and maize yield. Scientific reports, 6(1), p.29777.

O'Keefe, S.F., Bianchi, L. and Sharman, J., 2015. Soybean nutrition.

Voora, V., Bermúdez, J., Le, H., Larrea, C. and Luna, E., 2024. Soybean prices and sustainability. IISD Market Report, pp.2024-02.

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#RestorationGeneration.

當人類被關在籠内，地球持續美好，所以，給我們的教訓是:
人類毫不重要，空氣，土壤，天空和流水没有你們依然美好。
所以當你們走出籠子的時候，請記得你們是地球的客人，不是主人。

When humans are locked in a cage, the earth continues to be beautiful. Therefore, the lesson for us is: Human beings are not important. The air, soil, sky and water are still beautiful without you. So, when you step out of the cage, please remember that you are guests of the Earth, not its hosts.

We have a complete solution. We can restore whales to the ocean and bison to the plains. We can recover all the great old-growth forests. We possess the knowledge and tools to rebuild savannah and wetland ecosystems. It is not too late. All of these great works are recoverable. We can have a human population sized to harmonize, not destabilize. We can have an atmosphere that heats and cools just the right amount, is easy on our lungs and sweet to our nostrils with the scent of ten thousand flowers. All of that beckons. All of that is within reach.