CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 109Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource ManagementOil Palm Production and SustainabilityGlobal trade, sustainability, and social impact

Leakage does not fully offset soy supply-chain efforts to reduce deforestation in Brazil

Open access
Villoria, Nelson, Garrett, Rachael, Gollnow, Florian, Carlson, Kimberly·2022·Nature Communications
DOI 10.1038/s41467-022-33213-zPMC PMC9482629

Published version of a preprint

Open this paper in CoChat — free accountOpen PDF

Abstract

Zero-deforestation supply chain policies that leverage the market power of commodity buyers to change agricultural producer behavior can reduce forest clearing in regions with rapid commodity expansion and weak forest governance. Yet leakage—when deforestation is pushed to other regions—may dilute the global effectiveness of regionally successful policies. Here we show that domestic leakage offsets 43-50% of the avoided deforestation induced by existing and proposed zero-deforestation supply chain policies in Brazil’s soy sector. However, cross-border leakage is insignificant (<3%) because soybean production is displaced to existing U.S. farmland. Eliminating deforestation from the supply chains of all firms exporting Brazilian soy to the EU or China from 2011-2016 could have reduced net global deforestation by 2% and Brazilian deforestation by 9%. Thus, if major tropical commodity importers (e.g., the EU) require traders to eliminate deforestation from their supply chains, it could help bend the curve on global forest loss.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1038/s41467-022-33213-z

Cites

3 of 3 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • The effectiveness of private sustainability governance might be compromised by leakage if they operate on small market shares or at limited regional scales.

    “Their effectiveness might be compromised by leakage if they operate on small market shares or at limited regional scales 80,81 .”

    From Health benefits of reduced deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon (2024) · cites this paper as [81]

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Research works printed but not linked: 34

  1. [1]Garrett RD Criteria for effective zero-deforestation commitments Glob. Environ. Change 2019 54 135 147 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2018.11.003 · DOI
  2. [2]Lambin EF The role of supply-chain initiatives in reducing deforestation Nat. Clim. Change 2018 8 109 10.1038/s41558-017-0061-1 · DOI
  3. [3]Gibbs HK Brazil’s Soy Moratorium Science 2015 347 377 378 10.1126/science.aaa0181 25613879 · DOI · Paper page
  4. [4]Heflich, A. An EU legal framework to halt and reverse EU-driven global deforestation: European added value assessment. 132 https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2861/30417 (2020). · DOI
  5. [11]Villoria NB Hertel TW Geography matters: international trade patterns and the indirect land use effects of biofuels Am. J. Agric. Econ. 2011 93 919 935 10.1093/ajae/aar025 · DOI
  6. [12]Villoria NB Consequences of agricultural total factor productivity growth for the sustainability of global farming: accounting for direct and indirect land use effects Environ. Res. Lett. 2019 14 125002 10.1088/1748-9326/ab4f57 · DOI
  7. [13]Gan J McCarl BA Measuring transnational leakage of forest conservation Ecol. Econ. 2007 64 423 432 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2007.02.032 · DOI
  8. [14]Villoria NB Byerlee D Stevenson J The effects of agricultural technological progress on deforestation: what do we really know? Appl. Econ. Perspect. Policy 2014 36 211 237 10.1093/aepp/ppu005 · DOI
  9. [15]Taheripour, F., Hertel, T. W. & Ramankutty, N. Market-mediated responses confound policies to limit deforestation from oil palm expansion in Malaysia and Indonesia. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 201903476 10.1073/pnas.1903476116 (2019). PMC6754590 31481625 · DOI
  10. [16]Verstegen JA What can and can’t we say about indirect land-use change in Brazil using an integrated economic – land-use change model? GCB Bioenergy 2016 8 561 578 10.1111/gcbb.12270 · DOI
  11. [17]Heilmayr R Rausch LL Munger J Gibbs HK Brazil’s Amazon Soy Moratorium reduced deforestation Nat. Food 2020 1 801 810 10.1038/s43016-020-00194-5 37128066 · DOI · Paper page
  12. [18]Moffette F Gibbs H Agricultural displacement and deforestation leakage in the Brazilian Legal Amazon Land Econ. 2021 97 55 10.3368/wple.97.1.040219-0045R · DOI
  13. [19]Gollnow F Hissa LDBV Rufin P Lakes T Property-level direct and indirect deforestation for soybean production in the Amazon region of Mato Grosso, Brazil Land Use Policy 2018 78 377 385 10.1016/j.landusepol.2018.07.010 · DOI
  14. [20]Soterroni AC Expanding the Soy Moratorium to Brazil’s Cerrado Sci. Adv. 2019 5 eaav7336 10.1126/sciadv.aav7336 31328157 PMC6636994 · DOI
  15. [22]Le Polain de Waroux Y Garrett RD Heilmayr R Lambin EF Land-use policies and corporate investments in agriculture in the Gran Chaco and Chiquitano Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 2016 113 4021 4026 10.1073/pnas.1602646113 27035995 PMC4839429 · DOI
  16. [25]Tillie, P. & Rodríguez-Cerezo, E. Markets for non-genetically modified, identity-preserved soybean in the EU. https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2791/949110 (2015). · DOI
  17. [26]Hertel, T. W., Lee, H.-L., Rose, S. & Sohngen, B. Modeling land-use related greenhouse gas sources and sinks and their mitigation potential. in Economic Analysis of Land Use in Global Climate Change Policy (eds. Hertel, T. W., Rose, S. & Tol, R.) 123–154 (Routledge, 2009).
  18. [28]Hertel TW Tyner WE Birur DK The global impacts of biofuel mandates Energy J. 2010 31 75 100 10.5547/ISSN0195-6574-EJ-Vol31-No1-4 · DOI
  19. [30]Yao G Zhang X Davidson EA Taheripour F The increasing global environmental consequences of a weakening US–China crop trade relationship Nat. Food 2021 2 578 586 10.1038/s43016-021-00338-1 37118175 · DOI
  20. [33]Yao G Hertel TW Taheripour F Economic drivers of telecoupling and terrestrial carbon fluxes in the global soybean complex Glob. Environ. Change 2018 50 190 200 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2018.04.005 · DOI
  21. [34]Grabs J Cammelli F Levy SA Garrett RD Designing effective and equitable zero-deforestation supply chain policies Glob. Environ. Change 2021 70 102357 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2021.102357 · DOI · Paper page
  22. [35]Hertel, T. W. Global Trade Analysis: Modeling and Applications. (Cambridge University Press, 1997).
  23. [37]Muhammad, A., Seale, J. L., Meade, B. & Regmi, A. International Evidence on Food Consumption Patterns: An Update Using 2005 International Comparison Program Data. https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=2114337 (2011).
  24. [38]Golub AA Hertel TW Modeling land-use change impacts of biofuels in the gtap-bio framework Clim. Change Econ. 2012 03 1250015 10.1142/S2010007812500157 · DOI
  25. [39]Aguiar A Narayanan B McDougall R An overview of the GTAP 9 data base J. Glob. Econ. Anal. 2016 1 181 208 10.21642/JGEA.010103AF · DOI
  26. [42]Adjemian MK Smith A He W Estimating the market effect of a trade war: The case of soybean tariffs Food Policy 2021 105 102152 10.1016/j.foodpol.2021.102152 · DOI
  27. [44]Gruère G Brooks J Viewpoint: Characterising early agricultural and food policy responses to the outbreak of COVID-19 Food Policy 2021 100 102017 10.1016/j.foodpol.2020.102017 33390644 PMC7772090 · DOI
  28. [46]Rajão R The rotten apples of Brazil’s agribusiness Science 2020 369 246 248 10.1126/science.aba6646 32675358 · DOI · Paper page
  29. [47]Garrett RD Rueda X Lambin EF Globalization’s unexpected impact on soybean production in South America: linkages between preferences for non-genetically modified crops, eco-certifications, and land use Environ. Res. Lett. 2013 8 044055 10.1088/1748-9326/8/4/044055 · DOI
  30. [48]Levy, S. A., Cammelli, F., Munger, J., Gibbs, H. & Garrett, R. D. Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon Could Be Half with High Market Share and Strong Implementation of Zero-Deforestation Commitments. Available at SSRN: 10.2139/ssrn.3988688 (2022). · DOI
  31. [49]Gollnow, F., Cammelli, F., Carlson, K. M. & Garrett, R. D. Gaps in adoption limit the current and potential effectiveness of zero-deforestation supply chain policies for soy Available at SSRN: 10.2139/ssrn.4006677 (2022). · DOI
  32. [59]Antimiani A Costantini V Martini C Salvatici L Tommasino MC Assessing alternative solutions to carbon leakage Energy Econ. 2013 36 299 311 10.1016/j.eneco.2012.08.042 · DOI
  33. [62]Taheripour F Zhao X Tyner WE The impact of considering land intensification and updated data on biofuels land use change and emissions estimates Biotechnol. Biofuels 2017 10 191 10.1186/s13068-017-0877-y 28736576 PMC5520334 · DOI
  34. [64]USDA. USDA Agricultural Projections to 2030. Office of the Chief Economist, World Agricultural Outlook Board, U.S. Department of Agriculture. Prepared by the Interagency Agricultural Projections Committee. Long-term Projections Report OCE-2021-1, pp. 103 (2021).

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Villoria, N., Garrett, R., Gollnow, F., & Carlson, K.
Affiliations
  • Kansas State University (US)
  • University of Cambridge (GB)
  • Boston University (US)
  • University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (US)
Corresponding author
Villoria, Nelson
ORCID
Venue
Nature Communications
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Published
2022-09-17
Volume
13
Issue
1
Pages
5476-5476
ISSN
2041-1723 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1038/s41467-022-33213-z
PMC
PMC9482629
OpenAlex
W4296186309
Cited by
109
References
3
Citations by year
2026: 30 · 2025: 32 · 2024: 27 · 2023: 19 · 2022: 1
FWCI
7.52
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Nature Communications (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Research Square (acceptedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
  • Apollo (University of Cambridge) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • Repository for Publications and Research Data (ETH Zurich) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • Apollo
  • Apollo (cc-by)
  • ETH Zürich Research Collection
Funders
  • National Science Foundation (1739253, 1052875)
  • National Aeronautics and Space Administration (80NSSC18K0315)
  • U.S. Department of Agriculture (HAW01136-H, S1072)
  • National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (1052875, DBI—1052875)
  • Nuclear Safety and Security Commission
  • Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (1739253)
  • National Institute of Food and Agriculture (2020‐67023‐30970, HAW01146-M, HAW01136-H, S1072)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Oil Palm Production and Sustainability
  • Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Strategy and Management › Global trade, sustainability, and social impact
Keywords
soy supply chain, Brazilian soybean production, commodity trade, forest governance, tropical forest loss
MeSH terms
Agriculture, Brazil, Conservation of Natural Resources, Glycine max, Forests

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review