A coalition of UK food and farming groups, representing 60% of the country’s soya consumption, has announced plans to change over to purchases of deforestation-free soya.

The commitment, agreed by 38 companies, industry bodies and suppliers, is part of a UK move to ensure that all the UK’s soya imports are not produced on land that had been deforested to produce crops. It hoped to achieve a full conversion by 2025.

Ten trade associations, including the National Pig Association (NPA), the NFU, the British Meat Processors’ Association (BMPA) and Red Tractor, are supporting the initiative. There’s also support from major UK meat processors like Cranswick and Pilgrim’s UK, and retail buyers Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, Lidl, Aldi, Waitrose and M&S, have also signed the pledge.

The Agricultural Industries Confederation (AIC), representing the four major importers of soya and the animal feed industry, this week set out a series of comprehensive actions to deliver the aims. A key element will be to ensure UK companies producing and selling meat and dairy products by using soya in animal feed will have a practical mechanism to specify that they require deforestation and conversion free soya, with robust checks and balances in place to back this up.

AIC has committed to develop a new and verified deforestation- and conversion-free standard for the UK, which will be independently scrutinised. This will include producing a quarterly ‘soya deforestation risk register’ for UK imports of the crop, which will track the UK’s progress in the importation of deforestation and conversion free soya.

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The UK’s consumption of soya – 3.5m tonnes in 2020 – may be small in global terms, but is contributing to pressure on biodiverse landscapes such as the Cerrado, the Atlantic Forest, the Gran Chaco and Chiquitania in South America.

The 38 organisations’ letter said: “These actions will ensure that signatory companies can turn their ambitions into practical actions, supporting a mass market move to deforestation and conversion free soy use in the UK."

As well as the commitments, the groups are also calling for global markets to provide financial incentives and technical support to boost sustainable production.”