Soyfoods were slow to be incorporated into the local diet in Brazil, in part because soybeans were developed largely as an export crop. As Dr. J.E. Dutra de Oliveira (1981) observed:
It seems that local governments are not aware of the importance of soya for the solution of their serious food and nutrition problems . . . The message that soybeans are good has circulated only among scientists--it has not reached the politicians and the people. In Brazil, where we have been working on the subject for the past 20 years, it is only in the past few years and especially now in 1980 that the Brazilian government has discovered that soya can be used in human food . . . What is basic to us in relation to the practical use of soybean and soybean products is the knowledge and support of local governments.