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The UK government announced this week that they will be implementing national regulations to protect against deforestation.

The regulations will mirror the EUDR requirements in terms of the scope of foods and feed included and the requirement for companies to verify that their supply chains for these commodities do not contribute to deforestation.  There is no timescale announced yet for GB implementation; consultation will start shortly.  In the interim period Northern Ireland will implement the EUDR, under the Windsor Framework Agreement to maintain frictionless trade, phasing in from December 2026.

Anti-deforestation regulations will provide a significant new incentive for falsification of certification and traceability documentation, increasing the risk of origin fraud according to most risk-ranking models.

You can read the UK Government press release here.

Photo by Lingchor on Unsplash

Soybean farming—providing protein-rich feed for farm animals worldwide—is the third largest driver of tropical deforestation and expanding. Importing economies are considering regulating the trade of soybeans and other deforestation-driving commodities, and trading companies will be required to conduct due diligence to ensure compliance. 

One of the biggest challenges in tackling deforestation is simply knowing where a batch of soy actually came from.

In this new paper, by combining stable isotope ratios and multi element profiles with Gaussian Process modelling, Rsearchers pinpointed the harvest origin of soybeans to within ~193 km across the main soy growing areas of South America.