Soy: the blueprint for a regenerative future
RTRS 2024 International Conference | Opening speech
Soy is often seen as a driver of environmental degradation, but it has the potential to be a catalyst for change. By embracing regenerative practices, soy can restore ecosystems, combat climate change, and protect biodiversity. It’s time to transform soy into a force for good—one that rebuilds what has been lost.
Lieven Callewaert
President at the Roundtable on Responsible Soy (RTRS)
What matters most to you? Your family, your work, your dreams? Beneath all of these everyday priorities lies one foundational truth: health.
Our health—personal, communal, and planetary—defines our lives. Yet, in the pursuit of convenience and profit, we too often undermine the very same systems that sustain us.
The systems that make that good health possible.
Agriculture is the foundation of our food and water security, it is the force that shapes the landscape around us and that makes our life on this small, blue planet possible.
But agriculture has also become a leading contributor to environmental destruction and climate change. Too often it also comes with unfair pay and working conditions.
What if the same agriculture that has contributed to these crises could also become the solution? What if one crop—soy—could lead a global revolution in regenerative practices?
Our health is the planet’s health
Our health is intimately linked to the health of the planet. The quality of the water we drink, the food we eat, and the air we breathe depends on how we manage our natural resources. But today’s industrial farming systems are poisoning these essential elements. Agriculture, as it stands, is a major contributor to climate change, deforestation, and biodiversity loss.
Soy, however, could offer an opportunity for positive change. Soy is one of the biggest agricultural supply chains in the world, much larger than cocoa or palm oil. If we can transition soy production to regenerative practices, we can begin to reverse the damage.
Regenerative agriculture doesn’t just minimise harm—it actively restores ecosystems, rebuilds soil health, and sequesters carbon. This is the path forward, and responsibly produced soy can lead the way.
Soy as a global blueprint
To understand soy’s potential, let’s look at the numbers. Consider cacao, an important global crop discussed at the recent World Cacao Conference in Amsterdam, held in February 2024. Worldwide, we produce around five million tonnes of cacao annually, using roughly 10,000 acres of land. That’s about the size of a single small Brazilian soy producer’s farm.
Now consider soy: global production stands at a phenomenal 400 million tonnes, dwarfing other commodities like palm oil (70 million tonnes). To produce all the soy the world demands, we need vast amounts of land (125 million hectares)—land equivalent to the entire combined areas of the Netherlands and Belgium would barely produce 5% of the soy the world needs.
This scale presents a challenge but also an unparalleled opportunity. Because soy is grown on such a massive footprint, any transition to regenerative practices will have an outsized impact. In fact, regenerative soy could sequester carbon, restore ecosystems, and support biodiversity on a global scale.
The impact of regenerative soy could, frankly, be staggering.
The soy as a solution
Today, soy is often vilified as a driver of deforestation and environmental degradation, especially in regions like the Cerrado. It’s true that irresponsible production has contributed to these problems, and at scale. But here’s the truth no one talks about enough: there is a way to position soy as a solution instead of a problem.
We are already a long way down that road with our work at the RTRS. In the last few years we have achieved significant growth, reaching almost 7.5 million tonnes of certified responsible soy in 2023, across over 2.2 million hectares of productive land, and registering over 77,000 certified producers.
At RTRS, we are already proving that change is possible. Through our rigorous standards we are also setting a benchmark for regenerative practices. A proposed innovation to create a farmers regenerative incentives system was even rewarded by ISEAL Innovation fund reflecting our commitment to transparency, accountability, and impact. We can, however, go further and faster when combining Soy with other crops like Cotton and also there, ISEAL is with us!
With regenerative practices, soy could become a climate hero. The transition to regenerative agriculture globally could reduce global carbon emissions to pre-industrial levels within 20 years. Cacao and other crops, while important, don’t have the same potential for carbon sequestration due to their smaller land footprint. Soy, however, can deliver massive results simply because of its scale.
Our focus is on positioning soy as the flagship crop for regenerative agriculture. That’s why we framed our recent RTRS International Conference in Ghent around this topic, about the regenerative transition we need to bring about.
It’s not just about making soy ‘less bad’, it’s about transforming it into a force for good—one that restores rather than depletes.
Beyond sustainability, to regeneration
Sustainability is no longer enough. To sustain means to keep things as they are, but what we need is regeneration—a rebuilding of what has been lost. Soy offers an unmatched opportunity to lead this charge.
Through regenerative practices, we can:
- Restore soil health: regenerative techniques like crop rotation, reduced tillage, and cover cropping rebuild degraded soils, improving yields and reducing the need for chemical inputs.
- Sequester carbon: healthy soils act as carbon sinks, pulling CO₂ from the atmosphere and storing it safely in the ground.
- Protect water resources: regenerative agriculture improves water infiltration and reduces runoff, protecting rivers, lakes, and aquifers.
- Support biodiversity: by eliminating deforestation and promoting agroforestry, regenerative soy farms can become havens for wildlife.
The EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) has recently been pushed back by a year, highlighting the complexity of transitioning major agricultural commodities to sustainability. Soy is one of six key commodities included in this regulation, and its sheer scale makes it a unique challenge—but also a unique opportunity. If we get soy right, we can set a precedent for other crops.
For me, the answer is clear. Soy is “I am.” Soy for purpose. This is my purpose. This is why I have dedicated myself to the work of the Round Table on Responsible Soy. The soy community has a choice to make. Will we continue with business as usual, contributing to the crises we face? Or will we embrace the opportunity to lead a global transformation?
My vision is that one day, RTRS may no longer stand for the Round Table on Responsible Soy. Instead, it may represent the Round Table on Regenerative Soy—a global movement that redefines agriculture itself.
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Relive the opening speech of the conference
