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Cited by 474

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 48 of the 48 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Massive soybean expansion in South America since 2000 and implications for conservation

Open access
Song, Xiao-Peng, Hansen, Matthew C., Potapov, Peter, Adusei, Bernard, Pickering, Jeffrey, Adami, Marcos, Lima, Andre, Zalles, Viviana, Stehman, Stephen V., Di Bella, Carlos M., Conde, Maria C., Copati, Esteban J., Fernandes, Lucas B., Hernandez-Serna, Andres, Jantz, Samuel M., Pickens, Amy H., Turubanova, Svetlana, Tyukavina, Alexandra·2021·Nature Sustainability

Abstract

A prominent goal of policies mitigating climate change and biodiversity loss is to achieve zero deforestation in the global supply chain of key commodities, such as palm oil and soybean. However, the extent and dynamics of deforestation driven by commodity expansion are largely unknown. Here we mapped annual soybean expansion in South America between 2000 and 2019 by combining satellite observations and sample field data. From 2000 to 2019, the area cultivated with soybean more than doubled from 26.4 Mha to 55.1 Mha. Most soybean expansion occurred on pastures originally converted from natural vegetation for cattle production. The most rapid expansion occurred in the Brazilian Amazon, where soybean area increased more than tenfold, from 0.4 Mha to 4.6 Mha. Across the continent, 9% of forest loss was converted to soybean by 2016. Soybean-driven deforestation was concentrated at the active frontiers, nearly half located in the Brazilian Cerrado. Efforts to limit future deforestation must consider how soybean expansion may drive deforestation indirectly by displacing pasture or other land uses. Holistic approaches that track land use across all commodities coupled with vegetation monitoring are required to maintain critical ecosystem services. Deforestation is often driven by land conversion for growing commodity crops. This study finds that, between 2000 and 2019, most soybean expansion in South America was on pastures converted originally for cattle production, especially in the Brazilian Amazon. More soy-driven deforestation occurred in the Brazilian Cerrado.

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Metadata

Authors
Song, X.-P., Hansen, M. C., Potapov, P., Adusei, B., Pickering, J., Adami, M., Lima, A., Zalles, V., Stehman, S. V., Di Bella, C. M., Conde, M. C., Copati, E. J., Fernandes, L. B., Hernandez-Serna, A., Jantz, S. M., Pickens, A. H., Turubanova, S., & Tyukavina, A.
Venue
Nature Sustainability
Published
2021-06-07
Volume
4
Issue
9
Pages
784-792
ISSN
2398-9629 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W3167131540
Cited by
474
References
48
FWCI
28.01
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
green

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Massive soybean expansion in South America since 2000 and implications for conservation. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1038/s41893-021-00729-z
The paper
Song, X.-P., Hansen, M. C., Potapov, P., Adusei, B., Pickering, J., Adami, M., Lima, A., Zalles, V., Stehman, S. V., Di Bella, C. M., Conde, M. C., Copati, E. J., Fernandes, L. B., Hernandez-Serna, A., Jantz, S. M., Pickens, A. H., Turubanova, S., & Tyukavina, A. (2021). Massive soybean expansion in South America since 2000 and implications for conservation. Nature Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-021-00729-z

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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.