Soy Without Borders: The Transnational Dynamics of Commodity Frontiers In South America (1971-2019)

IF 0.3 Q4 ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES

Global Environment Pub Date : 2022-10-01 DOI:10.3197/ge.2022.150301

Cassiano Brito Rocha, Ryan Nehring, S. D. E. Silva

引用次数: 4

Abstract

The rapid growth of soybean production and exports over the past five decades has transformed vast regions in South America. Five countries in particular - Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay - are amongst the ten largest soy producers in the world. Taken together, they have been called the United Republic of Soy or Soylandia due to similarities in the socio-environmental drivers and consequences of soy production between their territories. This article analyses the nature of soy production and exports in Soylandia as a window into the nature of transnational commodity frontiers. We draw on data from FAOSTAT and the Observatory of Economic Complexity to show how the commodity frontier of soy has expanded over time within and between these five countries, as well as the importance of ecoregions in shaping that expansion. We argue that more attention should be paid to the socio-environmental drivers and consequences of agricultural commodity frontiers that transcend traditional understandings of national borders.

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大豆无国界:南美商品边界的跨国动态(1971-2019)

过去五十年来，大豆生产和出口的快速增长改变了南美洲的广大地区。特别是阿根廷、巴西、玻利维亚、巴拉圭和乌拉圭这五个国家跻身世界十大大豆生产国之列。这些国家合在一起被称为“大豆联合共和国”或“Soylandia”，因为它们的领土上大豆生产的社会环境驱动因素和后果相似。本文分析了大豆生产和出口在solandia的性质，作为一个窗口进入跨国商品边界的性质。我们利用粮农组织统计数据库和经济复杂性观察站的数据，展示了这五个国家内部和之间大豆的商品边界如何随着时间的推移而扩大，以及生态区域在形成这种扩大方面的重要性。我们认为，应该更多地关注超越传统国界理解的农产品边界的社会环境驱动因素和后果。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Global Environment ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES-

CiteScore

0.50

自引率

25.00%

发文量

期刊介绍： The half-yearly journal Global Environment: A Journal of History and Natural and Social Sciences acts as a forum and echo chamber for ongoing studies on the environment and world history, with special focus on modern and contemporary topics. Our intent is to gather and stimulate scholarship that, despite a diversity of approaches and themes, shares an environmental perspective on world history in its various facets, including economic development, social relations, production government, and international relations. One of the journal’s main commitments is to bring together different areas of expertise in both the natural and the social sciences to facilitate a common language and a common perspective in the study of history. This commitment is fulfilled by way of peer-reviewed research articles and also by interviews and other special features. Global Environment strives to transcend the western-centric and ‘developist’ bias that has dominated international environmental historiography so far and to favour the emergence of spatially and culturally diversified points of view. It seeks to replace the notion of ‘hierarchy’ with those of ‘relationship’ and ‘exchange’ – between continents, states, regions, cities, central zones and peripheral areas – in studying the construction or destruction of environments and ecosystems.