TECHNICAL WORKSHOP. 26th-28th APRIL 2006, SAO PABLO, BRAZIL

SPEAKERS PRESENTATIONS

KEY CONCLUSIONS

Round Table on Responsible Soy (RTRS)

Conclusions of the Sao Paulo Technical Workshop 

The Round Table on Responsible Soy (RTRS) organized a Technical Workshop on the responsible production, processing and trade of soy in Sao Paulo, Brazil, from April 26 to 28. The Workshop was held in the offices of ABN-AMRO, a member of the RTRS Organizing Committee, and was made possible with the support of the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affaire (SECO).

Over 60 participants, including highly regarded international experts and key stakeholders from farmers associations, agribusiness, social and environmental NGOs participated in the science-based discussions over three days exchanging different regional experiences and perspectives related to soy production, processing and trade. The overall goal of the Technical Workshop was to examine the 6 to 8 key social, environmental and economic impacts of soy production, in addition to reviewing some of the knowledge and experience brought to the event by the participants regarding potential means to reduce these impacts to more acceptable levels.

In addition to this, the Workshop aimed to not only identify and agree on key impacts, but also to identify issues where there is substantial disagreement or a lack of concrete data upon which to build solid conclusions. After hearing different presentations on environmental, social and economic impacts at both global and local levels, the participants discussed the various issues in smaller working groups, before sharing their respective conclusions in final plenary sessions.

Overall, experts and participants agreed on the importance of soy in satisfying the world food supply and the key role it plays in meeting the growing demand from global markets. Soy production also plays an important part in the economies of producing countries, generating export revenue and substantive income for the productive sector. Together with these economic benefits and the development generated by the soy business chain, the participants also reached consensus on the following key environmental and social impacts:  

Key Environmental Impacts

1. Habitat Conversion and Biodiversity Loss
2. Soil Degradation and Erosion
3. Contamination and Health effects of agrochemicals on man and environment
4. Qualitative and Quantitative hydrological changes
5. Infrastructure

Key Social Impacts

1. Worker´s Rights (violation of ILO Standards)
2. Loss of Livelihoods for small scale land use systems)
3. Migration (Rural to Urban Areas & Rural to Forest Ecosystems)
4. Land Rights Conflicts (Ilegal Acquisition, land use rights violations, & indigenous land rights)

While the presentations dealing with social issues contained a wealth of extremely useful first hand field experiences, there was a strong consensus among the participants on the need to strengthen future research efforts in the field of social impacts, given the lack of conclusive, comparable, verifiable and objective data upon which to build proactive policies, or develop reliable social performance indicators for responsible soy production.

The results of this Workshop will help the RTRS to develop and perfect criteria and indicators for responsible soy production, processing and trade over the upcoming months. In this regard, the consensus achieved by the Workshop’s participants, represents a major step forward in identifying the key impacts which will form the basis for these Responsible Soy Criteria.   

In addition to this, the Workshop will help RTRS and other influential players to design a research agenda in order to address some of the information gaps which are crucial for ensuring that responsible soy production is adopted and becomes mainstream practice by the soy industry in the future.

Finally, the outcome of the Technical Workshop will be fed back to the Second Roundtable Conference scheduled to be held in Asunción on August 31 through September 1 and 2 2006, where the RTRS will focus on the various proactive experiences already taking place in different soy producing regions, thus taking the Initiative ahead in a positive “win-win” mode. 

On behalf of the RTRS Organizing Committee, the Facilitation Team wishes to acknowledge the active work and enthusiasm of all participants at the Technical Workshop, in addition to the excellent efforts of all the moderators in helping all to identify and reach consensus on these key social and environmental impacts.        

PARTICIPANT LIST