Ecologically and biophysically optimal allocation of expanded soy production in Bavaria, Germany

Swantje Gebhardt*, Maria Haensel, Catharina J.E. Schulp, Andrea Kaim

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

A debate about cultivation and trading of soy has emerged among scientists, policymakers, and the public in recent years. Export-orientated soy production in regions of South America is associated with large-scale ecosystem destruction. Since soy is an important source of animal fodder, policymakers are developing schemes to support and enhance sustainable domestic soy cultivation, especially in the EU. Expanded soy cultivation should ideally provide high yields and at the same time promote environmental benefits. For this purpose, we applied a multi-objective optimization algorithm that selects areas with maximum soy suitability, minimum erosion risk, need for low fertilizer input due to water quality issues, and need for diversification of monotonous crop rotations. We use the state of Bavaria in Germany as a case study, modeling full self-sufficiency of soy. The results of the optimization indicate synergies between plantation suitability with need for low fertilization input and crop variation, which implies that the environmental benefit of nitrogen fixation and rotation diversification from soy plants can easily be reconciled with food productivity. However, slight trade-offs occur between erosion risk and the three other objectives, i.e., locations with better soy production might be more prone toward erosion risk. As a potential consequence of expanded soy cultivation in Bavaria, we identified winter wheat, grain maize, potatoes, and sugar beet as those crops that have the highest share of displaced cultivation area. To reduce such land use conflicts and ensure self-sufficiency in relevant crops, we recommend to limit the use of soy as animal feed. Nevertheless, we propose to explicitly incorporate the local need for the environmental benefits of soy cultivation in the planning for soy expansion. In doing so, domestic soy can turn into a real sustainable alternative to imported plant protein.

Original languageEnglish
Article number916003
Pages (from-to)1-15
Number of pages15
JournalFrontiers in Sustainable Food Systems
Volume6
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 17 Aug 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This research is part of the LandKlif project ( www.landklif.biozentrum.uni-wuerzburg.de ) funded by the Bavarian Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts via the Bavarian Climate Research Network bayklif ( www.landklif.biozentrum.uni-wuerzburg.de ). Additionally, this work was partly supported by the German Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) funding the SUSALPS project (Sustainable use of alpine and pre-alpine grassland soils in a changing climate) [Grant Numbers: 031B0027C and 031B0516C]. It was also partly funded by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) through the SusCrop ERA-Net project LegumeGap.

Funding Information:
We would like to acknowledge the data providers (Wolfgang Janssen, German Meteorological Service - DWD; Robert Knöferl, Bavarian State Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Forestry - StMELF; Robert Schätzl, Bavarian State Research Center for Agriculture - LfL) for the processed climate data for soy suitability calculation, the fertilizer ordinance delimited areas, the soil map with expert judgement regarding soy cultivation, and the Bavarian State Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Forestry (StMELF) for the data access of the Integrated Administration and Control System (IACS), provided by the Bavarian State Research Center for Agriculture (LfL). In addition, we thank the Bavarian State Research Center for Agriculture (LfL), the Bavarian Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Forestry (StMELF) and the Center for Agricultural Technology Augustenberg (LTZ) for sharing their knowledge about soy cultivation in and imports to Germany, M. Versluis, R. Riebl and B. Uniyal (all Professorship of Ecological Services, Bayreuth Center of Ecology and Environmental Research, University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany) for their support in processing the IACS data, M. Strauch (Department of Computational Landscape Ecology, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research-UFZ, Leipzig, Germany) for his support with the tool CoMOLA, and T. Koellner (Professorship of Ecological Services, Bayreuth Center of Ecology and Environmental Research, University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany) as well as our reviewers for their helpful comments on the manuscript.

Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2022 Gebhardt, Haensel, Schulp and Kaim.

Funding

This research is part of the LandKlif project ( www.landklif.biozentrum.uni-wuerzburg.de ) funded by the Bavarian Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts via the Bavarian Climate Research Network bayklif ( www.landklif.biozentrum.uni-wuerzburg.de ). Additionally, this work was partly supported by the German Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) funding the SUSALPS project (Sustainable use of alpine and pre-alpine grassland soils in a changing climate) [Grant Numbers: 031B0027C and 031B0516C]. It was also partly funded by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) through the SusCrop ERA-Net project LegumeGap. We would like to acknowledge the data providers (Wolfgang Janssen, German Meteorological Service - DWD; Robert Knöferl, Bavarian State Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Forestry - StMELF; Robert Schätzl, Bavarian State Research Center for Agriculture - LfL) for the processed climate data for soy suitability calculation, the fertilizer ordinance delimited areas, the soil map with expert judgement regarding soy cultivation, and the Bavarian State Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Forestry (StMELF) for the data access of the Integrated Administration and Control System (IACS), provided by the Bavarian State Research Center for Agriculture (LfL). In addition, we thank the Bavarian State Research Center for Agriculture (LfL), the Bavarian Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Forestry (StMELF) and the Center for Agricultural Technology Augustenberg (LTZ) for sharing their knowledge about soy cultivation in and imports to Germany, M. Versluis, R. Riebl and B. Uniyal (all Professorship of Ecological Services, Bayreuth Center of Ecology and Environmental Research, University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany) for their support in processing the IACS data, M. Strauch (Department of Computational Landscape Ecology, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research-UFZ, Leipzig, Germany) for his support with the tool CoMOLA, and T. Koellner (Professorship of Ecological Services, Bayreuth Center of Ecology and Environmental Research, University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany) as well as our reviewers for their helpful comments on the manuscript.

Keywords

  • ecosystem services
  • multi-objective optimization
  • soy cultivation
  • spatial land-use allocation
  • trade-off analysis

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