By Mateo Mier y Terán

The rapidly increasing production of soybean over the past four decades in the southern cone of Latin America, mainly in Brazil and Argentina, has demanded vast areas of land and predictions are that the global demand for this crop will continue pushing the increase in production. Most research or documents talking about this ‘expansion of soybean’ point out that the production of this crop has brought high economic growth but that it has also caused environmental impacts. However, the nature of and reasons for this expansion, as well as the impacts and opportunities that the soybean agri-food system brings, vary according to the location and are interpreted and understood from various contrasting perspectives.1 Moreover, the complexity of the global soybean agrifood system and its economic, socio-political and environmental impacts are not grasped by any single study. Instead there are diverse visions of what the expansion of soybean has implied and what the future of the production of this crop is (Brandão et al. 2006; Steward 2007; Greco et al. 2009; Gudynas 2007). In this panorama an array of public, private and civil society initiatives, national and international, have sprouted to influence and govern the production of this crop as well as its economic, environmental and socio-political impacts.