Few agricultural crops so clearly encapsulate the dilemmas of Brazilian development as soybeans—or "the" soybean, as some producers call it, a shortcut for "the soybean." In just over half a century, Brazil has gone from being a marginal importer of the legume to becoming the world's largest producer and exporter, with a production chain that combines cutting-edge technology, territorial vocation, and competitive strength. Soybeans contribute decisively to the trade balance, to state and municipal revenues, to the internalization of development, and to the consolidation of the country as a global agrifood powerhouse.
This leading role, however, is not without controversy. As production has expanded, so has criticism regarding the socio-environmental impacts of the dominant model, based on large-scale monoculture, intensive use of chemical inputs, and pressure on sensitive biomes such as the Cerrado and the Amazon. Tensions between production and conservation, economic efficiency and social justice, technology and sustainability are at the heart of the contemporary debate over the role of soy in Brazil.
Our reflection is based on the recognition of soybean's strategic importance to the Brazilian economy and society, but it does not ignore the costs and risks associated with its production. The objective of this text is to contribute to a more qualified analysis that goes beyond polarized discourses and points to viable paths for transitioning to more sustainable, resilient, and inclusive production systems. Indeed, this is what Brazilian society and international markets are demanding.
The strength of soybeans in the Brazilian economy
The rise of soybeans to become the flagship crop of Brazilian agribusiness offers one of the country's most remarkable stories of productive and territorial transformation. Introduced experimentally in the Southern Region, the crop reached its technical and economic maturity in the Brazilian Cerrado—a region that, until a few decades ago, was considered marginal for modern agriculture due to its acidic soil and poor infrastructure. Thanks to the coordinated efforts of institutions such as the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa), universities, and pioneering farmers, the "tropicalization of soybeans" has enabled the transformation of millions of previously underutilized hectares into highly productive areas. performance.
Today, Brazil leads global soybean production, with 168 million tons harvested in the 2024/25 harvest, according to the National Supply Company (CONAB). The crop occupies approximately 40 million hectares and represents a significant portion of the gross value of agricultural production. The export of grains and derivatives is one of the country's largest sources of foreign exchange, being a pillar of Brazil's trade surplus. The soybean chain directly contributes to state and municipal revenues, job creation, the economic dynamism of hundreds of inland municipalities, and helps reverse the flow of migration from Brazil's interior to coastal megacities.
But soybeans' importance is not limited to grain production and export. They are at the center of a complex and extensive production chain that interconnects multiple economic segments: seed, fertilizer, and pesticide industries; machinery and equipment; transportation, storage, and marketing; and, above all, the agro-industrial chains that depend on soybean meal and oil. In addition to the well-known poultry and pig farming industries—whose global competitiveness depends directly on soybeans as a key input for animal feed—the increasingly technologically advanced and integrated dairy chain also stands out. Consider also the biodiesel industry, in which soybean oil accounts for over 70% of the raw material used in Brazil.
Soy's impact also extends to food security, an aspect often overlooked by its critics. By providing high-nutrient-density plant-based protein and being a key input in the production of meat, milk, and eggs, soy is a major contributor to the food supply both domestically and internationally. In a world seeking to ensure affordable food for a growing population, Brazilian soy plays a strategic role—directly and indirectly—in combating hunger and malnutrition. The recurring criticism that soy production compromises food security ignores this essential contribution, in addition to disregarding the fact that most food insecurity in Brazil stems from inequality in access to income—not food scarcity.
Another fundamental, and often underestimated, aspect is the geopolitical dimension of soybeans. The crop served as a vector for the productive occupation of vast areas of the country that, until the 1970s, were considered unsuitable or secondary for agricultural development. By integrating the Cerrado and, later, the agricultural frontiers of the Northeastern Cerrado into the modernization cycle, soybeans promoted the internalization of development, bringing infrastructure, investment, and opportunities to regions previously marginalized in the process of economic growth. This reduced regional inequalities, strengthened the domestic market, and expanded Brazil's presence in global value chains. According to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the municipalities where the soy-led productive complex has consolidated boast the highest Human Development Indexes (HDIs).
Finally, soybeans are also an expression of Brazil's ability to generate applied knowledge, adapt technologies, and create tropical solutions for large-scale production. The crop's productivity surge in recent decades is a direct result of the combination of scientific research, rural entrepreneurship, and supportive public policies. This capacity for innovation places Brazil in a prominent position not only as a producer but also as a global benchmark in high-performance tropical agriculture.
Addressing criticism and controversies
The consolidation of soybeans as Brazil's main cash crop has been accompanied by a growing volume of criticism, primarily from environmental, academic, and civil society organizations. While many of these criticisms express legitimate concerns—especially regarding long-term sustainability—it is crucial to carefully examine the foundations of these assessments, distinguishing consistent diagnoses from hasty generalizations or decontextualized interpretations.
The first point concerns the relationship between soybeans and deforestation. It is undeniable that part of the crop's expansion occurred through the incorporation of new lands, especially in the Cerrado. However, it is important to remember that the advance of the agricultural frontier has historically been the basis of Brazil's agricultural growth strategy. For much of the 20th century, territorial expansion was the main driver of food production, sustained by an extensive, low-productivity model heavily dependent on cheap labor. Soybeans partially broke with this pattern. Although it also relied on territorial occupation, its expansion was led by migrants from the south of the country, relying on skilled family labor, high levels of technology, and significant productivity gains. In many cases, there was no direct deforestation, but rather the replacement of extensive pasture areas, or areas disturbed by previous crops—which had been abandoned—with mechanized agriculture, resulting in greater land use efficiency.
Another concept often invoked in a simplified way is that of monoculture. Although soybeans are, in fact, the main crop in many regions, it is incorrect to say that they are cultivated in isolation or repetitively. Since the early years of their expansion in the Cerrado, soybeans have been systematically associated with the cultivation of corn, sorghum, or brachiaria in succession or intercropping systems, especially in summer and autumn. This widely adopted practice improves soil quality and contributes to the balance of the production system. It is, therefore, a knowledge- and management-intensive model that challenges the reductionist view of a static and degrading monoculture.
This trajectory of productive and technological success, however, also raises debates about the agrarian structure associated with soybean cultivation and its impacts on income distribution.
The scale of soybean production in Brazil is indeed impressive—especially in the central-western regions and the new frontiers of the northeastern Cerrado, where medium-sized and large producers predominate, with cultivated areas that can exceed thousands of hectares. This characteristic has fueled criticism of land and income concentration, often associated with large estates and social exclusion. However, while these criticisms are based on real aspects of the agrarian structure in certain regions, they overlook important dimensions of the production chain.
First, they ignore the fact that soybean production in the southern states, notably Paraná and Rio Grande do Sul, remains strongly anchored in family farming, organized around modern, efficient cooperatives integrated with global markets. Second, they neglect the fact that the soybean chain is service-intensive, both upstream and downstream: from the supply of inputs, credit, technical assistance, and machinery, to transportation, processing, storage, marketing, and export. This dynamism creates a dense network of businesses and jobs in medium-sized and small cities, driving sectors such as commerce, finance, technology, and specialized services. Thus, even when production occurs on large properties, its economic impact is widely distributed, with a strong potential to drive regional development.
Criticism of the soybean social model often relies on the claim that mechanization has reduced the demand for labor in the fields, intensifying income concentration and excluding workers. However, this interpretation ignores two central transformations. First, the quality of work on soybean farms has changed radically: machine operators, agricultural technicians, managers, and digital agriculture specialists now comprise a more qualified workforce, with higher pay and better working conditions.
This represents a significant leap forward compared to the past, when much of the rural workforce lived in precarious and, in many cases, degrading conditions—which today would be unacceptable from any legal or moral perspective. Second, the effects of soy on employment are not limited to the farm gate. The supply chain encompasses banking, insurance, transportation, technical consulting, technology, commerce, and education, generating thousands of formal and skilled urban jobs. It is in this intertwining of rural and urban areas that much of the transformative power of soy in contemporary Brazil resides.
In the debate on agricultural pesticides, greater analytical rigor is also required. The so-called "tropicalization" of soybeans—that is, their adaptation to soil and climate conditions radically different from those of temperate climates—inevitably entailed greater use of chemical inputs, given the intense pressure from pests, diseases, and weeds in humid and warm tropical environments. Furthermore, the intensification of agriculture in subtropical and tropical areas, occupying the soil practically 365 days a year, creates a "green bridge" that favors the occurrence of pests for longer periods.
Direct comparisons with agriculture in temperate countries, where there are harsh winters and lower biodiversity of plant pathogens, are technically inadequate. Furthermore, it's natural that a crop still in its infancy in the 1970s would require few inputs—which makes some retrospective comparisons that suggest supposed "efficiency declines" disproportionate.
Another topic that gives rise to biased interpretations is the approval of new pesticides in Brazil. In 2024, more than 660 new products were registered, leading some sectors to interpret this number as a sign of environmental deterioration or excessive regulatory permissiveness. However, this volume needs to be understood in context: for years, there was a backlog of technical analyses and toxicological evaluations that delayed the release of compounds already widely used in other countries. Many of the recently approved products are more modern, more effective, and less harmful formulations, intended to replace older molecules with more aggressive toxicological profiles. New commercial brands of the same active ingredient (especially generics) have also been approved. It's reasonable to ask: when a new drug is approved in the country, or generic versions of the same drug are released, does this represent a threat to public health or an advancement in therapeutic offerings or cost reduction for consumers? The same reasoning can be applied to the agricultural sector.
None of this eliminates the need for rigorous monitoring, ongoing research, and improved regulatory frameworks. But the debate on agrochemical use in Brazil needs to be more technical and less ideological, recognizing that responsible, scientifically guided use of these products is a prerequisite for large-scale tropical production.
Finally, it's worth noting that, despite the criticism, the soybean chain has demonstrated a remarkable capacity for adaptation, incorporation of innovations, and pursuit of more sustainable solutions. As we'll see below, there's a growing set of initiatives—many of them led by producers, cooperatives, and research centers—that signal a shift toward more resilient, diverse, and environmentally integrated production systems.
Industry responses and pathways to sustainability
Faced with the challenges that accompany its expansion, the soybean chain has demonstrated remarkable responsiveness. Far from being paralyzed by criticism, the sector has been increasingly promoting technical innovations, organizational changes, and transition strategies aimed at economic, environmental, and social sustainability. In many cases, these responses stem not only from public policies or academia, but also from farmers, cooperatives, and companies themselves, who recognize the limits of the current model and the risks of inaction in a world increasingly attentive to the environmental credentials of agricultural products.
Among the most promising paths is the adoption of integrated production systems, particularly integrated crop-livestock-forestry (ICLF), which currently occupies millions of hectares and is internationally recognized as a high-impact tropical innovation. By diversifying land use, improving vegetation cover, and increasing carbon sequestration, ICLF simultaneously contributes to productivity and sustainability, reducing economic risks, soil erosion, and pressure for new areas. This increasingly widespread technology demonstrates the possibility of intensifying production regeneratively while respecting the ecological limits of the systems.
The use of bioinputs, such as inoculants, biodefensives, and biofertilizers, is also growing. Soybeans themselves are a historically successful example of biological nitrogen fixation, a technology developed and refined by Brazilian research—notably the work of researcher Mariangela Hungria, who won the 2025 World Food Prize, considered the Nobel Prize of agriculture. This innovation allows for the large-scale elimination of nitrogen fertilizers, not only for soybeans, but also leaves a "surplus" in the soil for subsequent crops.
Currently, research is advancing into the introduction of biological solutions for pest and disease control, with promising results across different biomes and production systems. Although adoption still faces logistical and regulatory barriers, the potential of bioinputs as an alternative—or complement—to conventional chemical management is significant.
Another key driver is digital agriculture. With the use of sensors, drones, satellite imagery, predictive models, and management software, producers now have greater ability to make data-driven decisions, reducing waste, optimizing input use, and ensuring greater traceability. These technologies make it possible to apply pesticides and fertilizers in a targeted and precise manner, avoid overlapping, anticipate infestations, and monitor environmental variables in real time.
In addition to technical innovations, the advancement of so-called green logistics is noteworthy, with efforts to reduce the carbon footprint during the transportation, storage, and export of soybeans. Socio-environmental traceability has also gained momentum, driven both by pressure from international buyers and by the sector's own growing interest in ensuring transparency and accountability. Certification programs, deforestation monitoring platforms, and initiatives for illegality-free supply chains are under development with the participation of multiple stakeholders.
However, despite these advances, Brazil still lacks an integrated national strategy for soybean sustainability. There is a lack of coordinated public policies, clear targets, and incentives that systematically reward good practices. Rural credit, for example, still fails to sufficiently differentiate between conventional and sustainable systems. Bioinput regulation remains fragmented, and technical assistance programs do not reach a large portion of medium- and small-scale producers. Thus, the transition effort is still overly concentrated on voluntary or local initiatives, which limits its scale and effectiveness.
Even so, the Brazilian soybean sector is no longer the same as it was decades ago. It operates in a complex global environment that simultaneously demands economic efficiency and environmental responsibility. By transforming some of these demands into opportunities for innovation and differentiation, Brazil can not only maintain its leadership position but also make it even more strategic—as a global benchmark in sustainable tropical production.
Conclusion
Soybeans are undoubtedly one of the pillars of contemporary Brazilian agriculture—in terms of economic value, territorial impact, geopolitical weight, sustainability, and technological capacity. Its trajectory, built over decades based on science, entrepreneurship, and public and private investment, has transformed Brazil into one of the world's greatest agricultural powers. The crop accounts for a significant portion of the agricultural Gross Domestic Product (GDP), powers entire animal protein chains, drives exports, generates jobs, and contributes to national and global food security.
However, this leading role also imposes responsibilities. Criticism directed at the soybean chain—especially regarding deforestation, pressure on natural resources, and long-term sustainability—should not be seen as threats to the sector, but as valuable warnings that must be taken seriously. In particular, illegal deforestation, still prevalent in several regions of agricultural expansion, compromises not only strategic biomes but also Brazil's international reputation and the very water resources that sustain production. And, ultimately, it can serve as a spurious argument for barriers to our exports. The preservation of the Amazon and Cerrado is not a concession to external agendas: it is a strategic condition for the continuity of production and life, as well as for the expansion and maintenance of markets.
Unfortunately, part of the sector still doesn't seem convinced of the urgency of this challenge. There are segments that resist recognizing the importance of the climate and environmental agenda, downplay the impacts of ecosystem degradation, and align themselves with political forces associated with environmental and social regression. This contradiction between economic modernization and institutional alignment with backwardness tarnishes the image of a sector that, in many ways, is at the forefront of technology, innovation, and competitiveness.
Overcoming this impasse requires more than technical adjustments. It is necessary to reposition Brazilian agribusiness—and, in particular, the soybean chain—as a sector committed not only to productivity, but also to environmental responsibility, transparency, and equity. This implies strengthening public research institutions, improving regulatory frameworks, fostering good practices, and ensuring that economic gains do not come at the expense of the country's natural and social heritage.
Soybeans will continue to be a central component of Brazilian agriculture and economy. But their future will depend on the ability of their stakeholders to understand that, in the 21st century, leadership isn't just about producing more—it's about producing better, respecting the planet's limits, the communities involved, and society's expectations. The sector has the capital, intelligence, and structure to achieve this. Some lack the political vision and historical commitment.
This text does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Unicamp
Antonio Márcio Buainain He is a professor at the Institute of Economics (IE) at Unicamp, a researcher at the Center for Studies in Applied, Agricultural and Environmental Economics (CEA/IE) and at the Institute of Science and Technology in Public Policies, Strategies and Development/ (INCT/PPED) and a member of the Sustainable Agriculture Scientific Council (CCAS).
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