International food trade and globalized agriculture production connects humans and the environment around the world. As consumption demands are increasingly met abroad by importing food products, environmental and socioeconomic effects of production are left in the producing region, while the effects on the importing countries’ domestic production remain understudied due to the complexity and low visibility of the impacts. As population growth increases the caloric demand and rising affluence drives changes in consumption patterns, connections via food trade will continue to increase. Therefore, to identify local impacts of global phenomena, this dissertation analyses the environmental and socioeconomic impacts of international soybean trade within Brazil (e.g., largest producer), China (e.g., largest consumer) and the U.S. (e.g., the former largest producer). Drawing from both natural and social science disciplines, global trade data, satellite-imagery, farmer interviews and soil samples were combined for an interdisciplinary assessment of how international soybean trade couples distant human and the environment systems, the true extent of land-use change driven by soybean trade and the resulting impacts within each respective country. Chapter 1 provides a review of the published literature and background on international soybean trade and production. In chapter 2, the influence of China’s soybean demand was measured on Brazil’s production and trade. The results suggest that export-oriented soybean expansion in Brazil displaced the production of other crops and increased imports from nearby countries. For chapter 3, the impact of imported soybeans on production in China’s main agricultural region was explored. Competition from imported soybeans has resulted in many farmers switching cultivation to corn or to abandon farming in search of more lucrative options. This cultivation shift requires changes in management that involve increased nitrogen inputs and residual crop biomass – both of which have resulted in environmental spillovers. Chapter 4 furthered the analysis by considering the impacts of farmer cultivation and management decisions on soil properties. Soil texture, pH, total organic carbon and 16S rRNA gene sequence were used in combination with detailed farmer management surveys to understand how changes in residue management effect efficiency, productivity, profitability and sustainability of the system. The results indicated that the accumulation of residual corn biomass has increased the use of residue fires and decreased the amount of crop residue being returned to the soil. The culminating chapter used an agent-based modeling (ABM) to integrate the above chapters into a TeleABM. The teleABM models land use change in Brazil and China based on global soybean demand. Land-use change decisions are made by farmer agents which have parametrized using the farmer interviews. Next, the farmer agent cultivation and management decisions have environmental impacts that were determined by analyzing the soil samples under the context of management decisions. Finally, production and the impact of farmer agent decisions on the soil properties feedback to the farmer’s future cultivation and management decisions. Because of the economic, environmental and political importance of international soybean trade, the results of this dissertation are of great interest for future soybean production and trade between the specified countries as well as food security and environmental sustainability across the world.
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