Global land-use implications of preference shifts towards regional feed and sustainable diets in Germany and the European Union

Abstract

In Germany and other EU countries, preferences for regional and GMO-free feed can increasingly be observed. Many industries like to brand their dairy, eggs and meat products as produced with regional and GMO-free feed. This – among others – has resulted in decreasing soybean and soybean meal imports from Latin America and the USA over the last couple of years, which are often genetically modified. This pattern is likely to be reinforced in the future. According to a recent Delphi panel, 36 % of German soya imports could realistically be replaced with local GMO-free alternatives in 2030. We show that such a shift in the structure of international protein feed markets has implications for global land use patterns using an economic simulation model. An inward orientation by shortening the feed supply chains will likely increase the pressure on global land use. While land use in Brazil could decrease when soya imports are further reduced, land use in other parts of the world could increase. This is because when restricting oilseed imports from outside the EU's single market, the EU and Germany now have to partially fill in the gap of oilseed imports by producing them locally. This, however, comes at the cost of lower wheat production in Germany and the EU and hence, wheat production is shifting elsewhere to meet the demand. As production has shifted from higher to lower yield regions, global land use for agriculture will likely increase. Our analysis shows that unilateral actions in Germany would have little effect on global land use expansions of 880 km². If, however, the EU mirrors the German preferences for regional and GMO-free feed, the situation will be different. In this case, the global land use change could increase by up to 13,800 km². A shift to regional and GMO-free protein feed can indeed be counter-effective in reducing land and environmental pressure. We show that concomitant and comparably small dietary changes with lower amounts of animal-sourced foods would be enough to counterbalance the adverse land use implications.