My beef with soya

When I read the newspaper, about all sorts of things of which I have only a general grasp, I tend to accept that the story presented is basically true. But when I see a piece about a subject of which I consider myself to have some knowledge, there only seem to be two possible responses:

1. Complete agreement and much nodding of the head or
2. Complete exasperation and much shaking of the head (and occasionally the fist).

The latter is usually brought on by either gross oversimplification or ‘churnalism’, in which unsupported ‘facts’ are repeatedly trotted out, and by dint of their repetition they somehow become accepted. This seems to happen very frequently where climate change is concerned and so here is a pre-emptive strike!

Soya meal has become a very important animal feed in the UK, and the UK supply is derived largely from South and North America. The land used to produce it in South America has, in some circumstances, been until recently rainforest. Further destruction of the rainforest is no good for anyone on the planet, so we should stop doing it.

UK beef and lamb production is not driving the demand for soya. The level of soya meal use in beef and sheep diets is very small. The best estimate I could find, from a colleague with a good knowledge of animal feeds, was that the use for sheep and beef respectively is two and four per cent of soya meal imports.

Why so low?

The mainstay of lamb and beef production is grass, either fresh or conserved, which is fairly high in protein. While the market for animal feed is large (equating to about 9.6 million tonnes sold annually across all species, with prices averaging around £190 per tonne), beef cattle and sheep are relatively low users. According to Defra stats the biggest users of compounded feed are:
• dairy (33%)
• poultry (31%)
• pigs (14%)
• beef (8%)
• sheep (8%)

When a supplementary source of protein is required, rapeseed meal and maize gluten meal are the most common options for beef and sheep producers. Soya is used less frequently, as it’s relatively expensive compared to other sources of protein.

So, to complete the circle – low usage levels and a low inclusion rate means that UK beef cattle and sheep are very low users of soya meal and could easily function without it at little or no cost. It will be interesting to see if this data becomes accepted wisdom for future climate change articles or whether commentators will continue to suggest that reducing the level of beef and lamb production in the UK will have a significant effect on the rate of deforestation elsewhere in the world.

Dr Duncan Pullar is Head of Research and Development for Eblex. To read more of Duncan's blogs please click here.