Cohort 2021
Sustainable open soy
Introduction
The U.S. Soybean Export Council (USSEC) focuses on differentiating, elevating preference, and attaining market access for the use of U.S. Soy for human consumption, aquaculture, and livestock feed in 80+ countries internationally.
Retailers are under pressure from NGO’s, investors and consumers to make their soy supply chains more sustainable. Most of the soy footprint is ‘embedded’ soy, soy that ends up via feed in animal products. Embedded soy has a very long, complex and fragmented supply chain. Despite the desire of some retailers to sell sustainable soy, the complexity of the supply chain makes this difficult without the cooperation and commitment of all partners, from traders, to farmers, to retailers. The soy industry needs to innovate.
Vision
Innovate the soy industry
Problem statement
Not all countries produce soy which meet the requirements the consumers want (not able to distinguish between “good and bad soy”). The soy supply chain is long and complex what doesn’t help to label the current soy. Farmers can’t prove what kind of soy they are offering. We need to create transparency.
Ambition
In the coming 3 years, we want to have the right processes and technologies (systems) in place to enable soy farmers to indicate they are meeting the required criteria/standards. And support them in achieving fair compensation.
Validated idea
An interoperable global data infrastructure that proves the provenance and chain of custody of zero-deforestation soy.
We will start with an active coalition of relevant actors (i.e. adequate representation) which is able to showcase at various key stages along the value chain what is possible to meet specific standards whilst being cost-effective in response to the different market values.
Want to learn more?
Download the full implementation roadmap for this validated idea to get inspired.