TL;DR – Most soyabeans in the world are genetically modified and used to feed animals. If you buy Alpro products then you automatically avoid GM and consume soyabeans not grown in the Amazon.

In 2018, 78% of the world’s soybeans were genetically modified.

Biotech soybeans occupied 97% of the 34.7 million hectares total soybean area in Brazil in 2017. The 33.7 million hectares biotech soybeans comprised: 13.6 million hectares herbicide tolerant and 20.1 million hectares stacked IR/HT.

Labelling is mandatory within the EU for all food and feed products consisting of, containing, or obtained from GM plants when this is above 0.9% of that ingredient.

Genetically modified crops are very often used for animal feed as animal derived products such as meat, eggs or milk do not have to be labelled.

About two thirds of all protein-based animal feed in the EU comes from soy, of which about 70% is imported, and over 90% of that is produced from GM soybeans.

Meat, milk and eggs from animals fed with GM crops is eaten in many countries including the UK. In the UK, meat, milk or eggs labelled as organic will be from animals that have been fed non-GM feed.

Of the UK supermarkets, only Waitrose commits to ensuring non-GM feed is used to produce its eggs, chicken, turkey, farmed fish and New Zealand lamb.

Alpro products do not contain any GMOs.

Alpro is the dominant player in their market segments with 43% market penetration.

IN 2017 Alpro grow about 60% their soyabeans in Germany and France, within 50km of their Issenheim factory. The other 40% was imported from Canada.

Soymeal, a by-product of the soybean oil industry, is a case in point. In oil extraction, soybeans yield 18 to 19 percent oil and 73 to 74 percent meal; the rest is waste. Only a small portion of the harvested beans is directly fed to animals (about 3 percent globally). However, more than 97 percent of the soymeal produced globally is fed to livestock.

Growth of soymeal feed production took off in the mid-1970s and accelerated in the early 1990s

Eight countries provide 97 percent of world production; the top three countries (Argentina, Brazil and the United States), account for 39 percent, 26 percent and 17 percent respectively. These three countries also achieved the highest absolute growth in production over the past four decades.

Although the soy oil industry was initially the main driver of soybean production, feed demand is currently driving the expansion. Indeed, soymeal accounted for about two-thirds of the value of soybeans in recent years, with oil
about one-third.

What the hell have soya beans got to do with grass fed dairy?

Worldwide figures consisting mostly of large commercial dairies. No relevance to small organic farms. Poore and Nemecek need to get up to date, put on a pair of boots and visit some local farms. Things are changing fast.

“while grazing of grass-fed animals can boost the sequestration of carbon in some locally specific circumstances, that effect is time-limited, reversible, and at the global level, substantially outweighed by the greenhouse gas emissions they generate.”

“‘Ultimately, if high consuming individuals and countries want to do something positive for the climate, maintaining their current consumption levels but simply switching to grass-fed beef is not a solution. Eating less meat, of all types, is.”

https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2017-10-03-grass-fed-beef-good-or-bad-climate

Soy beans eat grass when they do not attack indigenous people during dusk to dawn. You didn’t know?

Grass-fed dairy constitutes a minute amount of British milk. If you were to try to expand that industry to fit the needs of 65m people, you don’t have enough land for cows to graze.

Grass fed in the summer you mean? No nutrients in grass in the winter and inside all of them come. The dairy industry IS the meat industry. As soon as the cows slow up producing milk off they go at a young age to slaughter for meat. Dairy is a shockingly cruel industry where they remove the calves from their mothers causing huge distress. Most of the males are killed . These cruel industries need to be stopped.

You are right. Most meat industry is cruel. Slaughtering is brutal. No two ways about it.

Until the industrial revolution the greater part of deforestation was due to Arable Agriculture. Ice cores from the Antarctic show no rise in atmospheric carbon until the early 1800s ( Industrial Revolution ). The contribution to GHGs from Animal Ag has increased dramatically since WW2 along with world population and greater affluence. The current official figures from the IPCC state that 26% of GHGs comes from all agriculture, 14.5% comes from Animal Ag. Most of this is produced by “CAFOs and non regenerative grazing methods, most small farms contribute little too this, and in some cases not at all. The bulk of GHGs still comes from “industrial carbon”. The assertion that 90% comes from Animal Ag is tantamount to FANTASY.

PS. I don’t support Industrial Agriculture of any kind.

Rowland, there is not necessarily connection between co2, greenhouse gases and climate change.

It is still widely accepted that the human caused removal of 51% of the worlds tree cover/forest is a more powerful contributor to global warming and that co2 measures are merely an indicator of the oxygen consumer/producer equilibrium. As many such balances are (indicators) in so many other complex biological and chemical processes (within closed spheres such as Earth)