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KIT expert comments on current topic: Trade war imperils Amazon rainforest
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-03/kift-kec032819.phpPublic Release: 28-Mar-2019
KIT expert comments on current topic: Trade war imperils Amazon rainforest
Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT)
Last year, the United States of America imposed tariffs of up to 25% on goods imported from China. The Chinese government reacted by imposing tariffs of 25% on US goods, including US soybeans. Exports of US soybeans to China in 2018 dropped by 50%, even though the trade war had begun in the middle of the year only. Replacement may be provided by Brazil. This might have dramatic impacts on the rainforest, KIT experts warn.
"As a consequence of the trade war, we fear large-scale deforestation in Brazil. In the past, exponential increase in global soybean demand regularly led to deforestation in the Amazon rainforest to create new cultivation areas. In 2016, China imported 37.6 million tons of soybean from the US, which now have to be supplied by other producers. Brazil is the only country which could satisfy Chinese demand quickly enough," says climate researcher Richard Fuchs. Together with his colleagues Calum Brown and Mark Rounsevell from the Atmospheric Environmental Research Division of KIT's Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research and other European scientists, he studies potential impacts and warns of the consequences in a comment of the Nature magazine.
Brazil is by far the largest producer of soybeans, followed by the US and Argentina. Around 90 other countries, including China itself, together produce just about as much soybeans as Brazil alone. In the course of the US-China trade war, China's soybean import from Brazil climbed to a new record value of 75%. Soy is a crop that is mainly used as animal feed in meat industry. To an increasing extent, it is applied for the production of biofuel.
"In our opinion, it is most likely that Brazil will ramp up its production to satisfy the additional Chinese soybean demand. To achieve that, Brazil needs to increase the current area of soybean production by up to 39%. This would require up to 13 million hectares of additional land, likely to be tropical forests and corresponding to an area similar to Greece. In 1995 and 2004, the country's two peak deforestation years, 3 million hectares of rainforest were lost each year. Taking these rates, it would require only four years to provide enough area for Chinese soybean consumption. We urge the United States and China to acknowledge their roles in indirectly driving deforestation and to accordingly modify their trade agreements by removing tariffs from soybeans."
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https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-00896-2KIT expert comments on current topic: Trade war imperils Amazon rainforest
Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT)
Last year, the United States of America imposed tariffs of up to 25% on goods imported from China. The Chinese government reacted by imposing tariffs of 25% on US goods, including US soybeans. Exports of US soybeans to China in 2018 dropped by 50%, even though the trade war had begun in the middle of the year only. Replacement may be provided by Brazil. This might have dramatic impacts on the rainforest, KIT experts warn.
"As a consequence of the trade war, we fear large-scale deforestation in Brazil. In the past, exponential increase in global soybean demand regularly led to deforestation in the Amazon rainforest to create new cultivation areas. In 2016, China imported 37.6 million tons of soybean from the US, which now have to be supplied by other producers. Brazil is the only country which could satisfy Chinese demand quickly enough," says climate researcher Richard Fuchs. Together with his colleagues Calum Brown and Mark Rounsevell from the Atmospheric Environmental Research Division of KIT's Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research and other European scientists, he studies potential impacts and warns of the consequences in a comment of the Nature magazine.
Brazil is by far the largest producer of soybeans, followed by the US and Argentina. Around 90 other countries, including China itself, together produce just about as much soybeans as Brazil alone. In the course of the US-China trade war, China's soybean import from Brazil climbed to a new record value of 75%. Soy is a crop that is mainly used as animal feed in meat industry. To an increasing extent, it is applied for the production of biofuel.
"In our opinion, it is most likely that Brazil will ramp up its production to satisfy the additional Chinese soybean demand. To achieve that, Brazil needs to increase the current area of soybean production by up to 39%. This would require up to 13 million hectares of additional land, likely to be tropical forests and corresponding to an area similar to Greece. In 1995 and 2004, the country's two peak deforestation years, 3 million hectares of rainforest were lost each year. Taking these rates, it would require only four years to provide enough area for Chinese soybean consumption. We urge the United States and China to acknowledge their roles in indirectly driving deforestation and to accordingly modify their trade agreements by removing tariffs from soybeans."
…