Theory

Soyalism

Description

Food production has increasingly become a huge business for a handful of giant corporations. SOYALISM follows the industrial production chain of pork and the related soybean monoculture, from China to Brazil through the United States and Mozambique.

This eye-opening documentary describes the enormous concentration of power in the hands of these Western and Chinese companies and the impact this is having on the food we consume. Hundreds of thousands of small producers have gone out of business and entire landscapes have been permanently transformed. The system has been exported across the world.

From waste-lagoons in North Carolina to soybean monoculture in the Amazon rainforest, is this demand for soybean jeopardizing the environmental balance of the planet?

After viewing the documentary, teachers will engage students to ponder and reflect on what they have seen. To stimulate the conversation, teachers can:

• divide students in small groups to discuss the impact that certain trends, choices and lifestyles have on the environment, even those trends that seem to be green and/or sustainable.
• ask the students to write an essay on the documentary and assess 

Language

English

Relative Material

Link: 

• The Rise of Soyalism: Industrialising Pork Production & Soybean Monocultures | Documentary - Trailer
• The Rise of Soyalism: Industrialising Pork Production & Soybean Monocultures | Documentary - IMDb Link

Topics covered

Agriculture, farming, environment protection, sustainability, critical thinking

Relevance

The documentary gives a glance of the impact of certain agricultural and farming practices on the environment as well as on society. Starting from the soybean cultivations in South America, which are destined for production of vegetarian and vegan staple products and as feed for farmed livestock. 

We often hear how we have to reduce our meat consumption and embrace a more vegetarian diet with less meat consumption, but many vegetarian and vegan products are soybean-based, and soybean agriculture is everything but sustainable in many parts of the world.

The documentary “Soyalism” gives a perfect and powerful example of how greenwashing works, and how not everything that claims to be sustainable is not necessarily better than those “less sustainable” practices.

It is also a very valuable source of environmental education, as it explains through its videos how various factors contributing to Climate Change are interconnected, based on practices that can be changed with more eco-friendly solutions. Furthermore, TedEd produces content regularly and frequently, thus it can be a self-updating source of educational videos.

Most importantly, it teaches children and young people how much of the current modus operandi of industry is actually strictly depending on consumers, and that can be changed if coordinated common actions are taken.