Crisis narratives from the Dutch soyacene:regional sustainability hi/stories at sites of soy consumption

This chapter argues that the environmental history of the Soyacene must not only study sustainability issues produced at sites of soy cultivation and trade, but also those at sites of soy consumption. Focusing on areas in the Netherlands with some of the world’s most intensive animal farming (which is enabled by huge soy imports for protein supply), we here identified four different, and politically conflicting, hi/stories about the past and future of soy, animal farming, and sustainability challenges: an ‘agricultural miracle’ narrative, an ‘environmental pollution’ narrative, an ‘animal suffering’ narrative and a ‘global footprint of soy consumption’ narrative. These narratives alert us to diverse sustainability challenges related to soy-based factory farming. Moreover, we observe that these hi/stories highlight diverse 'historical problems' and problem causes, and accordingly envision diverse 'future solutions' and assumptions about who is responsible for implementing these. We call for more research of diverse sustainability narratives within and between distant-yet-connected regions across the globe. The plurality of experiences, knowledges, and livelihoods relayed to soy needs to be taking serious in ongoing attempts at envisioning more inclusive 'sustainable' futures