The UK’s new Due Diligence on Forest Risk Commodities and its reliance on amazonian soybeans

Abstract

This article analyses how the United Kingdom’s Due Diligence Regulations on Forest Risk Commodities (UKDR) relate to the bilateral soybean trade between Brazil and the UK. The findings strongly suggest that soybeans from Brazil are one of the main targets of the UK's new legislation. The crossing of literature, NGO reports, trade data, and open governmental and institutional documents showed that the UK highly relies on soybeans from South America to fulfil its internal animal protein food industry, with soybeans from Brazil being the second major case of the UK’s ‘imported deforestation’. Between 2020 and 2022, soybeans were also the second most exported product from Brazil to the UK, after gold, reinstating the Brazilian traditional place as an exporter of raw and essential commodities to developed countries. This article advocates that even though the new UKDR will affect Brazil disproportionally, compared to other agri-exporter countries, the legislation is not designed to challenge the soybeans economic model or deforestation on a broader aspect but to ‘clean’ UK’s agricultural supply chain from illegal tropical forest deforestation. The article's findings show that in the last five years (2017 -2022), the annual percentage of Brazilian soybean exports from states that comprise the Amazon biome, in part or wholly, to the UK was above 70% every year, a trend that does not follow Brazilian general soybean exports, suggesting that the UK may be more exposed to deforestation than other importing countries. The UK food industry could be financing an agricultural production model contributing to Amazon forest deforestation.

Keywords

• due diligence
• soybeans
• brazil
• united kingdom