UK Demand for Soya Destroying Amazon

The Amazon rainforest and savanna lands are being destroyed at a rate of 1.2m hectares (3m acres) a year to feed Europe's insatiable desire for more soya bean production, according to a research report yesterday.

The UK is one of the chief customers for South American soya production, and the report says that by 2020 an area the size of Britain will have been converted to grow the beans as the market grows by 60%.

Soya oil appears in hundreds of processed foods such as ice cream, margarines, mayonnaise and lipsticks, but the biggest market is to feed farm animals. Adam Harrison, rural development officer for WWF Scotland, said: "The market has grown because feeding cattle animal protein was banned following the BSE crisis, and soya is the high protein substitute."

The report says that soya production has led to vast tracts of land being cleared in southern Brazil, and the near-disappearance of Brazil's Atlantic rainforest. It says damage could be greatly reduced and production increased by alternating the growing of soya with cattle ranching, which improves the soil and increases yields of soya and from the cattle.

Mr Harrison said: "Our report concludes that fairly simple changes in farming methods can save a lot of virgin land and have environmental and economic benefits."