China’s Hunger for Meat Fuels Brazil’s Resource Consumption
Behind a steak served in China often lies a soybean field cultivated in Brazil. It’s the image of an increasingly interconnected global food system, at the center of a study published in Nature Food by Camilla Govoni and Maria Cristina Rulli from Politecnico di Milano, in collaboration with researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Universidade de São Paulo.
The research shows that China’s growing demand for meat and other animal proteins depends largely on Brazilian agricultural resources, with consequences for land use, water resources, and deforestation. Between 2004 and 2020, China’s soybean imports rose from 6 to 60 million tons, requiring in 2020 more than 17 million hectares of land and over 86 cubic kilometers of rainwater.
This soy, mainly used to feed pigs, poultry, and farmed fish, supports nearly one-third of the animal proteins consumed in China, contributing 29% of animal proteins and 10% of total proteins in the national diet.
Understanding that a significant share of the nutritional intake of a population exceeding one billion people depends on agricultural resources located on the other side of the world pushes us to question the future of our food systems. If we want to make them resilient, we must think not only about the supply of proteins, but also about their more sustainable and equitable distribution, reducing pressure on ecosystems while safeguarding global food security.
Camilla Govoni, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, study's lead author.
The research, which combines expertise in hydrology, environmental sciences, and human nutrition, also highlights how soybean-driven agricultural expansion may cause water stress in areas of Brazil previously considered less vulnerable.
The findings underscore the need for global governance strategies to reduce the environmental impact of protein production and international trade, emphasizing how a country’s dietary choices can affect global environmental and economic balances.