Europabio

The soybean is a plant with a tradition: it was already cultivated in China by the year 3,000 BC. Today it is the oil crop of greatest economic relevance in the world. The projection for the harvest in 1999/2000 is about 157 million tons. The FAO reported a worldwide production of 158.3 million tons for 1998.
15 million tons of the worldwide production of soybeans is processed in European oil mills each year.

Source:
Production Estimates and Crop Assessment Division, FAS, USD
(August 1999)

As a result of the soybean's high content of fat and protein, its range of applications is extremely varied. After the pressing of the beans to obtain the oil, the protein- and carbohydrate-rich "press cake" (coarse soybean meal) is used mainly as animal feed for poultry, pigs, and cattle. Coarse soybean meal is also processed to produce a broad variety of foods. Soybean oil is used particularly in the production of oils and margarines. The lecithin from soybean oil is an effective emulsifier (mixing enhancer) and is used, for example, in confectionery products such as chocolate. Experts estimate that there are as many as 30,000 food products that contain soy derivatives.
Soybean oil is also used outside the food sector, for instance in the production of soaps, colours, plastics, and cosmetics.

	Oil mill / Processing

	20% soybean oil		80% coarse soybean meal

Products made with whole beans	Lecithin	Soybean oils and fats	Proteins from coarse soybean meal	Animal feed
Fermentation products: Soy sauce Soybean paste Natto Tempeh Miso (Asian cuisine) Soy beverages Tofu Products from toasted soybeans: Soybean nuts Ingredients of crackers and chips Products containing full-fat soybean meal: Confectionery Instant milk drinks Pancake flour Sweets Soups Sauces Meat and fish products	Products made virtually only of soybeans: Cocoa beverages Milk mixed beverages and powders Ice cream Confectionery and long-keeping cakes and biscuits Vitamin products Other: Cosmetics Paints Clear lacquers Pastes and glues Insect sprays	Vegetable oil Margarine Baking fats Mayonnaises Sugar coatings and toppings Dip-fried deep-frozen meals Potato and maize chips Salad dressings Sauces Soups Gravy	De-oiled soybean meal (inter alia in preserves) Milk-substitute products Meat-substitute products TV dinners Dietetic beverages	For poultry, pigs, and cattle

Dried seeds contain proportionally more essential amino acids (components for the production of protein) than meat, thus making the soybean one of the most important food crops today.

The active constituent of the herbicide Roundup is glyphosate. Glyphosate rapidly and systemically takes effect in all species of plants, which is why it is termed a broad-spectrum herbicide. Roundup has now been in use for 25 years and is employed in more than 100 countries. It is also used in sensitive ecosystems (e.g. in the Australian rain forests). There are no recorded instances of resistance developing. Glyphosate is highly effective and is characterized by a favorable ecological profile.
The active constituent is considered to be safe: toxicological investigations have shown that glyphosate has no toxic effect on humans or animals (Malik et al., 1989). The acute oral toxicity (immediate toxicity when taken orally) is roughly the same as that of table salt. Studies into chronic toxicity made over a period of two years have not revealed any damaging effect. The substance's mutagenicity and teratogenicity profiles (damaging effect on genetic material and on unborn life, respectively) have also been investigated without yielding any evidence of detrimental effects.
The herbicide is rapidly degraded in the soil. Once it has entered the soil, it binds to soil particles. It is biodegradable, since soil bacteria of the species Pseudomonas, Flavobacterium, and Arthrobacter essentially exploit the herbicide as a source of phosphate (Pipke and Amrhein, 1988).
The way in which glyphosate works is well known. The herbicide inhibits an enzyme of vegetable metabolism, EPSP synthase (enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate). As this enzyme is indispensable in the production of aromatic amino acids (components of proteins) which are essential for the plant, all plants sprayed with glyphosate perish after application of the herbicide.
Monsanto has succeeded in developing a soybean that is capable of resisting the effects of glyphosate in the herbicide Roundup. By means of genetic modification, it has been possible to make the soybean capable of forming a particular protein which renders it resistant towards Roundup - hence the name Roundup-Ready® soybean.
The first herbicide-tolerant soybeans were cultivated in the United States by over 10,000 farmers over an area of roughly 400,000 hectares in 1996. This amounted to approximately 2% of the entire soybean crop in the United States. In 1997, the total acreage of Roundup-Ready® soybeans in the United States amounted to 3.6 million hectares, corresponding to roughly 13% of the total American soybean acreage of 28 million hectares in 1997. The cultivation of this crop for 1999 is estimated at 50% (15 million hectares) of the overall soybean acreage (estimated at 30 million hectares in 1999).
In addition, over 100,000 hectares of Roundup-Ready® soybeans were cultivated in Argentina in 1996/97 (the sowing season in Argentina lasted from the end of 1996 until the beginning of 1997), corresponding to almost 1.5% of the total soybean acreage in that country. This increased to about 4.3 million hectares (>60% of the total acreage) in 1998. This soybean variety is also being approved in Brazil since end of 1998. Commercial scaled cultivation is expected for autumn 2000.
In Canada, Roundup-Ready® soybeans were cultivated on roughly 40,000 hectares in 1998. It is expected that the transgenic soybean acreage (only Roundup-Ready® soybeans) will increase to 150,000 - 200,000 hectares in 1999.
In the EU authorities granted an import and processing licence for the soybean as an animal feed and as food in 1996.
Half of the soya crop in the USA this year (1999) is from one variety of GM soya, and generally the modified soya is grown and harvested in parallel with the conventional crops. Consequently food producers and retailers in the Europe are now assuming that unless their soya supplies can be traced back to a non-GM source, the soya they use is likely to contain at least a proportion of GM material. As a result, many foods now can be labelled as containing derivatives from 'genetically modified soya'.
Different producers and retailers have gone to various lengths to check the origin of the soya derivatives they use. Van den Berghs (part of the Unilever group) currently uses GM soya only in 'Vesta' brand meals and its 'Beanfeast' range. Both product lines are labelled on the ingredients panel, as required by European law. Van den Berghs checks its soya derivatives for novel DNA using PCR, and has managed to secure non-GM material (such as the lecithin used in margarine) for most of its product lines.
In April 1999, Unilever announced that it would cease to use GM materials in any of its products once current stocks were exhausted.

The same principle and associated advantages apply to the herbicide Liberty (active constituent glufosinate). As with Roundup, the effect is based on enzyme inhibition, in this case the inhibition of glutamine synthetase. The effect of the herbicide results in an accumulation of the cytotoxin ammoniac in the plant cell, and the plant perishes. The incorporation of a bacterial gene in plants makes them capable of modifying glufosinate in such a way that its application no longer results in the inhibition of the vegetable enzyme. Natural resistance towards the herbicide has not been observed.
Liberty constitutes an expansion of the number of conventional herbicides used in the cultivation of soybeans and oilseed rape. It enables weeds to be targeted after the crop and the weeds have emerged (post-germination phase), with the result that pre-germination herbicides are in many cases be rendered redundant.
Liberty is rapidly degraded: the half-life of the herbicide - depending on climatic conditions - is three to twenty days. It has not been possible to discern any accumulation of the herbicide or of any of its intermediate metabolites during the degradation process. The ultimate degradation products in the soil are naturally occurring substances such as phosphoric acid, carbon dioxide, or water.
The high degree of safety associated with the use of the herbicide has been demonstrated by many years of its use in ecologically sensitive systems (e.g. in fruit cultivation) since the early 1980s.
Despite the fact that Liberty-tolerant soybeans were approved in Canada since 1996 and in USA since 1998, there is no commercial cultivation of this transgenic crop in these countries, because approval in the EU is still pending, and US growers and traders did not wish to export unapproved products to the EU.

Instead of applying herbicide prior to sowing the seed - which is the case with conventional soybeans - the farmer sprays the herbicide only after a few weeks, when competition posed by weeds for soy sprouts becomes a problem. Post-germination application of herbicide can be labour-saving and weeds can be utilized as a protection against soil erosion.
Using a herbicide-tolerant soybean the farmer needs only one herbicide - and a relatively favorable one ecologically. By contrast, farmers have used as many as five different herbicides to protect conventional soybean crops against weeds.
In 1997, roughly 70% of farmers of Roundup-Ready® soybeans used Roundup to fight weed growth only once, while 29% used it twice and only 1% three times or more.
Herbicide-tolerant soybeans were first cultivated in the United States in the spring of 1996. The amount of herbicide required was reduced by 9% in the Mid-West and by as much as 39% in the southeastern regions of the country. These differences were due to climatic conditions, row distances, and the type and extent of weed growth. In 1997 it was possible to reduce the application of herbicides by 11% in the Middle West and by 30% in the southeastern areas.
Harvest yield was improved by 5% per hectare (in 1998 some regions reached up to 24% higher yield compared to conventional soybeans). This average extra yield of 5% per hectare represents increased earnings of approximately $30 per hectare for the farmer.
Rates of cultivation rose correspondingly. While in 1996 about 2% of the total acreage was cultivated with herbicide-tolerant Roundup-Ready® soybeans, this proportion rose to 13% in 1997 and is estimated to rise to as much as 50% in 1999.
LibertyLink® and Roundup-Ready® soybeans mean that herbicides can be used sparingly and efficiently.
The LibertyLink® soybean has not yet found its way into major commercial-scale cultivation. It is however anticipated that the facts and figures described above will also apply to this type of soybean.

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