A new joint investigation by Unearthed, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and Ecostorm has revealed that a loophole in the so-called Amazon Soya Moratorium renders supermarkets’ customer-friendly claims of ‘deforestation-free soya’ near meaningless.

Soya is a key commodity used by dairy, cattle, pig and poultry farmers in Europe and the rest of the world to feed their livestock.

The findings undermine eco-friendly claims by some global meatpackers, animal feed companies and supermarkets that soya is no longer linked to Amazon destruction.

Deforestation by the back door

The Amazon Soy Moratorium  – first agreed in 2006 – bans the sale of soya grown on Amazon land deforested after July 2008. But beef and other crops are not restricted under the soy moratorium, meaning farmers can sell their soya to traders as “deforestation-free” while destroying rainforest for cattle, corn and other commodities.

Evidence suggests that the moratorium has successfully stopped rainforest being directly converted into soya fields. However, soya farming has continued to expand in the Amazon, overwhelmingly on land that was previously cleared, usually for cattle. That expansion can still indirectly cause fresh deforestation, as ranchers sell up to farmers at a profit and move deeper into the forest, where land is cheaper.

The investigation showed that in recent years destruction of the rainforest has increased.

For example, between 2009 to 2019 in Mato Grosso state – which stretches over the southern part of the Amazon and grows more soya than anywhere else in Brazil – 1,180 sq km of rainforest was felled on soya farms in order to grow other crops or to provide pasture for cattle ranching. This is according to data analysed by the Brazilian NGO Instituto Centro de Vida (ICV) and shared with the investigation partners. The vast majority of this deforestation was illegal, lacking licenses under Brazil’s Forest Code.

That land area, according to the World Land Trust calculator, equates to an area nearly the size of Hong Kong.

Destination UK

In 2020 the UK imported more than 140,000 tonnes of soya from municipalities with at least 7 sq kms of hidden deforestation on soya farms, and about 50,000 tonnes of corn – both crops are used in the meat and dairy supply chains of major food retailers for animal feed.

According to Paul Morozzo, Senior Forest Campaigner at Greenpeace UK “Supermarkets cannot ignore the role of meat and dairy in the climate crisis. It’s time they took real action to end links to deforestation for good. That means dropping forest destroyers and reducing meat and dairy. Until they do, they may as well be handing out matches to light this years’ Amazon fires.”

Soya from the areas most at risk for this type of deforestation is regularly shipped to the UK, Spain and other European countries for use as livestock feed on factory farms by major grain traders including Bunge, which supplies soya to Spain and Cargill, a major UK supplier. Cargill’s customers include Tesco, Asda and Lidl.

The investigation established that, with trade links leading to Europe and China, certain Mato Grosso municipalities appear particularly vulnerable to this hidden deforestation. The analysis shows a strong flow of soya from these areas to the UK, suggesting that UK businesses could be turning a blind eye to deforestation in UK supply chains.

The Retail Soy Group, which represents leading retailers including Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Lidl and Waitrose, acknowledged to the Guardian newspaper that there were limitations to the moratorium and said the new allegations “further highlight the need to have strengthened legal protections of these vital ecosystems”.

• Read the full investigation at the Bureau of Investigative Journalism website : https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2022-02-10/farms-touting-deforestation-free-soya-still-tearing-down-the-amazon and on the Unearthed website : https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2022/02/10/deforestation-free-soya-farmers-amazon-destruction

A recent study from the National University of Singapore revealed that regular tea drinkers have better organised brain regions – and this is associated with healthy cognitive function – compared to non-tea drinkers.

The discovery was made after examining neuroimaging data of 36 older adults.

“Our results offer the first evidence of positive contribution of tea drinking to brain structure, and suggest that drinking tea regularly has a protective effect against age-related decline in brain organisation,” explained team leader Assistant Professor Feng Lei, who is from the Department of Psychological Medicine at the National University of Singapore (NUS) Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine.

The research was carried out together with collaborators from the University of Essex and University of Cambridge, and the findings were published in scientific journal Aging.

Effect on brain networks

Past studies have demonstrated that tea intake is beneficial to human health, and the positive effects include mood improvement, reduced risk of glaucoma and cardiovascular disease prevention. In fact, results of a longitudinal study led by Asst Prof Feng which was published in 2017 showed that daily consumption of tea can reduce the risk of cognitive decline in older persons by 50%.

Following this discovery, Asst Prof Feng and his team further explored the direct effect of tea on brain networks.

The research team recruited 36 adults aged 60 and above, and gathered data about their health, lifestyle, and psychological well-being. The elderly participants also had to undergo neuropsychological tests and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The study was carried out from 2015 to 2018.

Upon analysing the participants’ cognitive performance and imaging results, the research team found that individuals who consumed either green tea, oolong tea, or black tea at least four times a week for about 25 years had brain regions that were interconnected in a more efficient way.

Keeping the flow of information going

“Take the analogy of road traffic as an example – consider brain regions as destinations, while the connections between brain regions are roads. When a road system is better organised, the movement of vehicles and passengers is more efficient and uses less resources. Similarly, when the connections between brain regions are more structured, information processing can be performed more efficiently,” explained Asst Prof Feng.

He added, “We have shown in our previous studies that tea drinkers had better cognitive function as compared to non-tea drinkers. Our current results relating to brain network indirectly support our previous findings by showing that the positive effects of regular tea drinking are the result of improved brain organisation brought about by preventing disruption to interregional connections.”

This small but interesting study needs to be repeated on a larger scale. The team next plans to examine the effects of tea, as well as the bioactive compounds in tea that can have on cognitive decline.

The consumption of whole grain cereals has been associated with a lower risk of type-2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and some cancers. How it does this – whether via effects from bioactive compounds contained in whole grains, or the effect that phytochemicals and fibres have on intestinal bacteria – is still the subject of some speculation.

In a new study researchers from the University of Eastern Finland and the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) tested the metabolic effects of consuming an enriched wheat bread against wholegrain rye bread in 15 human volunteers.

For the first four weeks of the study, the participants ate 6 to 10 slices a day of either whole grain rye bread or a white wheat bread enriched with fermented rye bran. In a second 4-week testing period, all participants ate the same amount of rye-free white wheat bread. Otherwise, they didn’t change their diet.

At the end of both testing periods, they gave blood samples, which were analysed by a combination of liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry. In particular the researchers were looking to compare the samples for concentrations of certain metabolites (the end product of metabolism) which might indicate a risk

Serotonin-glucose connection

The consumption of wholegrain rye led to, among other things, significantly lower serotonin concentrations when compared to consumption of the wheat bread. This finding was confirmed in a separate feeding test involving mice.

Serotonin is best known as a neurotransmitter in the brain. However, serotonin produced by the intestines remains separated from the brain, serving various peripheral functions including modulation of gut’s motility. Increased blood serotonin has also been associated with high blood glucose levels.

“Whole grain, on the other hand, is known to reduce the risk of diabetes, and on the basis of these new results, the effect could at least partly be due to a decrease in serotonin levels,” says Academy Research Fellow Kati Hanhineva from the University of Eastern Finland.

The researchers say the findings, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, may also shed some light on the development of colorectal cancer.

“Some recent studies have found cancer patients to have higher plasma serotonin levels than healthy controls,” Scientist Pekka Keski-Rahkonen from IARC adds.

The ingredient of concern is calcium propionate (also known as E282) which is added to ready-made foods to which prevent mold growth. Propionate (propionic acid) is a naturally occurring short-chain fatty acid found in butter and some types of cheese, but calcium propionate, used in food production, is a synthetic ingredient.

An international team of researchers led by Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health combined data from a randomized placebo-controlled trial in humans with results from mouse studies. Results showed that in humans consuming calcium propionate can trigger a cascade of metabolic events that leads to insulin resistance and hyperinsulinemia. Insulin resistance is when the body doesn’t respond well to the hormone insulin, which helps cells take in sugar, or glucose. Such resistance can lead to the high blood sugar levels seen in people with diabetes.

Natural Health News — The industrialisation of agriculture has radically transformed the way most of our food is produced and not always in a good way.

Scaling up production has led to more food being available at lower prices throughout the world. But, increasingly, we are seeing the negative side of this chemically intensive system of food production. Today, 2,000 pesticides with 500 chemical substances are being used in Europe. However, data on how such substances affect soil quality is incomplete and fragmented, and fails to clearly reflect their overall impact on soil systems and human health.

First-time research conducted in the course of two EU-funded projects, iSQAPER and RECARE, is shedding light on the state of European soils. The results are far from reassuring. According to a paper published in the journal Science of the Total Environment, pesticide residues were found in the vast majority of agricultural soils tested in 11 European countries.

The researchers analysed 76 different pesticide residues from 317 topsoil samples. Alarmingly, 43 of the 76 pesticide residues tested were detected in the soils. “Considering that we tested less than 20% of the active substances currently approved in the EU markets, pesticide residue occurrence in soils might actually be higher,” the authors state.

Pesticide residues were found in 83% of the analysed agricultural soils in 166 different pesticide combinations. The most common mixtures detected at the highest concentrations were the controversial weedkiller glyphosate and its metabolite aminomethylphosphonic acid, followed by the commonly used pesticide dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT, banned in the EU in 1986), and the broad-spectrum fungicides boscalid, epoxiconazole and tebuconazole.

The selected samples originated from soils used in the production of cereals, permanent crops, root crops, non-permanent industrial crops, vegetables, and dry pulses, flowers and fodder crops. Soils from root crops revealed a much higher pesticide residue content than those from other crops. In fact, all of the tested root crop soils contained pesticide residues, with 85% of them containing multiple residues.

Better monitoring needed

The content of pesticide residues occasionally exceeded their predicted environmental concentrations in soils, but nevertheless remained below threshold values for soil organisms set by the European Food Safety Authority.Nevertheless, there’s still reason for concern, since the methods used to determine the threshold values are, according toe the scientists, inadequate.

“To get a pesticide approved on the market, only five soil animals and two bacteria groups are tested. But in the soil we have more than one million species,” says Prof. Violette Geissen of project coordinator Wageningen University, the Netherlands, in a video posted on the iSQAPER website. “The others are all not tested on the effects of pesticides. What actually is tested is much less than 1%. Furthermore, mixtures of pesticides in the soils are not tested. Different pesticides can interact in the soils; together can have synergetic effects on others. Nobody knows.”

The study points to the need for monitoring programmes for pesticide residues and the combined effects of residue mixtures in soils. While RECARE (Preventing and Remediating degradation of soils in Europe through Land Care) has now ended, iSQAPER (Interactive Soil Quality Assessment in Europe and China for Agricultural Productivity and Environmental Resilience) continues in its efforts to promote healthy soils as the basis for sustainable food production.

• More information on the iSQAPER project can beb found here. Read about the RECARE project here.