Chinese demand for soybeans underpins a commodity market where neither certification nor price premiums to producers are promising approaches to minimizing habitat conversion. Other strategies are necessary to green commodity markets of this type, which will increase the scale of their impact as the world’s agricultural economy globalizes and hundreds of millions of people enter the middle classes and shift their consumption patterns and diet. These approaches include:
• risk management in multinationals, where deforestation is a reputational issue irrespective of attitudes in domestic markets
• non-price premium incentives to producers (subsidized credit, access to extension services, etc.)
• improving regulatory frameworks through cheap, large-scale land-use monitoring
• intensifying production systems on land already cleared
• framing environmental issues in terms of food security