The EU currently imports around 95% of the soybeans and soybean meal it uses, roughly 14 and 16 million tonnes annually, largely from Brazil, Argentina and the US. Under the trade disruption scenario, modelled as a complete halt to imports, domestic legume production expands substantially but still falls short of replacing lost supply, pushing soybean prices up 150% and reducing livestock output by 2-3%, particularly affecting pig and poultry farms. The policy support scenario, modelled as EU-wide use of the existing option to allocate 2% of direct payments to protein crops, achieves more modest gains with limited disruption to markets or farm incomes. The consumer scenario, an 11% shift from meat to plant-based protein based on EU consumer preference surveys, delivers comparatively smaller domestic production changes but the largest reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions, since it reduces demand-driven pressure on production both within and outside the EU. 

A complementary life-cycle assessment found the environmental burden of German-grown soybeans was two to three times lower than that of imported Brazilian soybeans across most impact categories, reflecting the deforestation and land-use change associated with soy expansion in South America.

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