Climate Change May Increase EU Soybean Production in the Future

A study published by the Leibniz Center for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF) in the journal Global Change Biology shows that in the long term, more and more arable land in Europe will become suitable for soy production.  According to the authors of the study, this would enable the EU to do without a large proportion of soybean imports from Brazil and the US in the future.

Soybeans are already grown in France, Italy, Serbia, Romania and Austria, often under artificial irrigation.  “Expanding soybean cultivation in previously cooler regions expands the possibilities for farmers to make their crop rotations more diverse and thus mitigate the risk of weather-related yield losses and increase biodiversity,” explains Prof. Claas Nendel, head of the study.  It helps that the soy plant, as a legume, can absorb nitrogen directly from the air, without needing fertilization.  This also reduces negative environmental impacts, such as the release of excess fertilizer into groundwater.