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"Soya: The Quiet Conquest"
SOYA—THE QUIET CONQUEST (Reprinted from "Wise
Traditions" Winter 2001 courtesy of www.westonaprice.org).
I. The Soybean and Its Family
Today everyone, whether he wishes it or not, whether living in an
advanced or backward country, is confronted by the soybean, although
not visibly (apart from the modish foods like tofu, soya milk, meat and
sausage substitutes and sauces). We may know that oil-cake from soya is
needed for intensive animal breeding, or that soya-lecithin has found
wide use. But to realize to what a degree the world economy - the
welfare of industrial nations as well as the survival of less
well-to-do countries - has become dependent on this plant, we have to
look at this more closely.
The soybean belongs to the family of the legumes, together with
peas, beans, clover, peanuts. This family has an ability highly valued
by the farmer, of binding the nitrogen in the atmosphere in their root
nodules (with the help of bacteria). In China the soybean was planted
for centuries in the year preceding the crop-rotation proper. While
nitrogen is a support to the plants that follow, the plant itself
serves as animal fodder or green manure and its seeds as food for
humans. In the west the nitrogen function was largely taken over by the
clovers, etc. These plants foster milk-production but can occasionally
cost the life of a cow from bloat.
That legumes can fix nitrogen in the soil, while other plants are
dependent on it, places them in a category by themselves, opposed to
the rest of the plant world. Their mode of growth differs markedly from
other plants. The latter hold up their blossoms and seeds to the sun
and cosmos the best they can. Growth then stops and the plant dies
after seeding. The legumes, however, blossoming and fruiting in the
leaf region, go on producing leaf and blossom alternatively without a
pause. Their blossoms form a kind of helmet containing hollow spaces -
a gesture of withholding, reminiscent of the way animal organs form.
Their germination is also characteristic. Instead of the soya sending a
vertical shoot to seek the free air, a bean neck emerges, both ends of
which stay in the soil - both the root and cotyledon poles. The plant
seems reluctant to leave the earth. Many features in its growth remind
us of descriptions of the "animal-plants" on the "Old Moon," of which
Rudolf Steiner speaks in the Outline of Occult Science.
The short period of time within which germination of the soybean
must take place (within four months) is in striking contrast to the
cereal plants. They concentrate their fruiting on elevated stems,
leaving their leaves behind them to shrivel and die. The soybean's
realm is the watery sphere of the undines, while the grains ripen among
the fiery salamanders. With regard to the usual threefold nature of
plants - earth-emprisoned roots, rhythmically growing and breathing
leaves, an independent realm of color and scent in the blossom - the
legumes seem only two-fold due to an undifferentiated region of leaf
and blossom. Rudolf Steiner points out in the Agricultural Course how
the legumes embody a gesture of "taking" (characteristic of the animal)
while all other plants are "giving."
The plant world builds itself in the main by virtue of the element
carbon, while animal life bases on the element calcium. This is the
carrier of the life of desire; from this derive inwardness and
autonomy. Desires belong to the soul and require stimulus from outside.
The calcium in the mineral world has need of nitrogen to maintain its
vitality and rouse its "appetites." Thus the legumes are by their
nature the allies of calcium and under its domination.
The family of legumes includes many quite dangerous poisonous
plants, others not undangerous. Even the edible pulses must be prepared
and eaten with care. More refined cultures have made less and less use
of these foods. In any case, they are consumed mainly in the
wintertime, when humans are more independent of the cosmos and more
concerned with themselves. What dangers follow, if this most typical
representative of the legume family, the soybean, becomes the worldwide
basis for food production?
What the Soybean Can Do
It is enlightening to thumb through a brochure that recommends the
planting of soybeans -at present highly subsidized by the European
Union-and read the directions given to farmers. They must first ensure
the presence of soil bacteria, if these originally Chinese plants are
to reproduce their valuable root nodules in western soils. The soy
plant can't tolerate weeds as neighbors. These must be removed at least
three times a year with suitable weed-killers (when plowing, in early
spring and immediately after planting). Under "competition" it sickens.
This anti-social bent is reflected on the economic level, as we shall
see. To avoid the danger of mould in damp weather, the harvest should
by-pass the farmer's barn and go directly to the processing plant.
There it can be dried and stored under optimum conditions.
The high protein content of this plant is its chief attraction as a
food. Protein is the "animal" substance produced around the seed, where
astral forces have been most active. Much intelligence has been
required to make this plant consumable. First an industrial oil is
pressed out, from which margarine is made. It wasn't easy to find a use
for the residual "oil-cake," for although animals eat it with relish,
it has a growth-inhibiting effect. Only when the substances responsible
for this had been isolated and removed could it become the basis for
the mass-breeding of animals. Pigs, chickens and cattle could be
"produced" quicker with this than with traditional forms of fodder.
The plant's relation to water is the key. Water, allied to moon
forces and calcium, fosters growth, while form, structure, and specific
qualities stem from warmth and sunlight. Volume can be gained, but at
the expense of a "watering down" of quality. It is interesting that in
its natural form soya contains a counteracting and now "unwelcome"
growth-inhibiting factor. Removing it from the fodder permits
growth-forces to work unchecked; this is demonstrated by the
cartilage-like bones of the young animals.
On the other hand, the prosperity of the industrialized world - that
spends only a fraction of its income for foodstuffs - is dependent on
such processes. The mass breeding of animals nourished on soya
oil-cake, in combination with crops produced intensively using
artificial fertilizers, has held food prices unnaturally low, at the
same time encouraging development of giant food industries. Thus our
consumer society, with its squandering of resources and its
ever-increasing sense of dissatisfaction, owes its existence in growing
measure to the previously unimagined properties of the soybean.
It is able to serve our sense of well-being in many other ways. It
is the chief and cheapest source of lecithin, which ensures the
smoothness of chocolate and hinders the crystallization of sugars.
Fatty substances are made "light." For example, with lecithin,
margarine can be made to contain 20 percent water. Soy-meal mixed with
wheat flour prevents shrinkage in baking. Increased water content makes
baked goods cheaper and crispier when stored. Added to meat products,
it prevents shrinkage during cooking. Soya has won uses in medicine,
cosmetics, paints and milk products, due to its ability to take up
substances and hold them fast, to "subserve" instead of asserting its
own personality. Its talent consists in creating illusions, useful for
making ice creams, sauces, fast-foods, cat foods and dog foods. It can
imitate the taste, appearance and texture of almost any food we might
find on our plates.
The talent of this plant, aided by modern industry, in supplanting
all other foodstuffs is not to be ignored. The only question is, to
what degree has it become a hindrance to the emergence and development
of human soul forces? What is its influence going to be in future on
the evolution of the earth?
Part II: The History of the Soybean in the 20th Century
Here we are to encounter the same dynamic everywhere, as if this
plant had opportunistic genius in expanding-even becoming a factor in
wars. It has been able to muster a large share of the world's
intelligence and capacity, in finding and taking advantage of all its
possibilities. Behind its unassuming task of providing cheap but rich
feed for animals and in certain regions for whole human populations, it
has managed to squeeze in "by the back door." But once it emerges from
the shadows, its behavior becomes pugnacious. We note the phrases:
"capturing the market," "offensives," "strategic alliances," "political
pressure," "battles," etc. The chart below showing the trade in soya
for the year 1980 is strongly reminiscent of a plan for strategic
encirclement.
The potato and the later tomato, both from the deadly nightshade
family, made their world conquest in quite a different way. Their
spread was due to their practicality in providing foods with little
trouble and space involved. Their expansion was peaceful, if
irresistible, and the outcome has been a total change in eating habits,
(similar to that worked by the soybean) including a profound influence
on human nature. Rudolf Steiner showed their contribution to the spread
of materialis without this effect coming to our notice. We can ask
whether, in a certain sense, these plants have not paved the way for
the soybean.
The economic leadership of America, established to a supreme degree
in the course of this century, is based not solely on external power,
but also on the fact that all nations on earth have come to depend on
America in a variety of ways. Where this becomes a dependency for
foodstuffs-and in this America seeks with every possible means to make
such dependency absolute-the soybean comes into a position of
influencing people's physical constitution, the basis of individual
being. What other plant apart from the soybean could have allowed a
world dominion to arise, drawing its power from the denial to
populations, through diet, of the physical basis for clear thinking and
independent, conscious action?
The pressure exerted today by America in world politics was preceded
by a patient, purposeful partnership of interest over decades. When it
became clear that unsuspected possibilities lay in soya used as green
fodder and as nitrogen enricher of the soil, the ASA (American Soybean
Association) was founded. This unites industrialists, soybean producers
and scientists. Each year the extent of soybean planting is set by
common consent in light of demand and the extent of government
subsidies. In this way prices could be held at a constant low level,
permitting the oil mills to carry on a price-war that gradually drove
all competing products from the field. The scientists' task was to
convert the oil-cake to a product that would satisfy the demands of
animal breeders, and to explore all possible further uses of this
plant. Thus in America both a highly mechanized intensive mode of
farming and the mass breeding of animals could be worked out and
perfected.
Many factors have played into the hands of the soybean. In the
beginning (the 1920s) when there was an overproduction of wheat, corn,
and cotton in America, the government gave financial support for
planting soybeans on fields otherwise unneeded. The slow rise in the
American standard of living, with its preference for white meat and
vegetable fats, increased the demand both for margarine and for
oil-cake for large scale breeding. By its cheapness, margarine could
take its place beside butter in the ordinary American diet. The serious
competition from cotton-seed oil-cake was removed as by magic when the
government reduced cotton planting while continuing soybean support.
During the Second World War soy oil could substitute for oils that
could no longer be imported. Even the socialist revolution in China
gave a boost to the American soybean. Confiscation and reapportionment
of land removed the possibility of planned production, and soon China
was importing soybeans from America.
Thus America became the only country exporting soybeans. True, in
the 1970s the U.S. saw Brazil and later Argentina become real
competitors, but economically this worked out in a positive way. In the
meantime, every country in the world was opened up to the soybean. The
support offered countries in the throes of emergencies became a means
of disposing of US overproduction. Political ties to such countries
strengthened as the flow of goods-but particularly of soy oil-changed
the dietary habits of populations. This ensured a steady market and
economic dependence.
As regards the soybean, the world falls into two parts-one continent
producing the plant and offering it everywhere in forms adapted to
economic circumstances, and all other continents, which have become
totally dependent on the first for this base support for their living
standards. In 1973 the world suddenly woke up to this sour pill. A
drought year in Africa destroyed the peanut harvest; simultaneously
came an unpredicted demand from Russia. Since the area reserved for
soybean production proved much too small, the US was driven to choose
either to prohibit all exports or experience a shortage at home. The
embargo on soya that ensued raised a panic in the importing countries.
Provisions for mass animal breeders were imperiled, with all
foreseeable economic consequences. Fortunately, the crisis proved not
so severe as anticipated. The export bans were relaxed, while Brazil
emerged as a new supplier. Yet an enormous rise in price had resulted,
which dropped after the crisis, yet still remained 1½ to 2 times
higher.
For 20 years now, European countries have tried to escape from this
dependency. They plant soya themselves where climate permits (Italy
producing 90 percent of European production), or breed new varieties
which thrive in less favorable climatic conditions. Use of indigenous
plants or those imported from former colonies to produce oil-cake is
encouraged, but the result is far from conclusive. Despite use of
oil-cake from rapeseed, sunflower, cotton and peanuts, the demand for
soya oil-cake has not declined in the European Union, now representing
around 70 percent of total needs. Efforts at independence prove futile
as the demand rises.
And America is convinced it must consolidate this situation so that
it can never change, whatever the circumstances. Surveying the plight
of various countries due to the soybean, we might be tempted to agree
with America that everything should remain as it is. There seems indeed
no rational way to change matters. Only too easily can we visualize
what immense suffering would follow any sudden collapse of the present
system.
Japan offers a typical case of how the prosperity of industrialized
countries can depend totally on the soybean. Japan accepted American
arguments that all its efforts should go into the industrial side, into
construction of oil mills. They import the beans, grown but sparsely at
home, from America. Thus with mass animal breeding techniques they
ensure cheap meat prices for their population. Countries like Tunisia,
major producers of olive oil that has up to now been supplied cheaply
for local use, are now importing American soy oil, mixing it with olive
oil for local consumption, and thus have more pure oil for export to
richer countries. Everywhere we see the temptation to gain prosperity
by means of the soybean, meanwhile dismantling the possibility of
achieving self-sufficiency.
Brazil is a case in point. Its politics of economic expansion via
the soybean has robbed the internal market of access to local
production. Government subsidies favor the big landowners; the
expensive mechanization needed for farming has driven the small
farmers, who formerly supplied the cities with food, into the city
slums. The result: in order to feed the population, the profit from
export of soya has to be invested in imports of wheat, beans, etc.,
chiefly from America. In 1973 Brazil decided to set up oil mills in
order to export finished products. These installations have proven far
too large for what is grown at home, thus part of what is to be
processed must be imported. But Brazil is not only an exporter; half of
soy-bean production is consumed locally. The oil-cake goes to the
country's poultry farms (frozen chicken for central Asia). So decisions
are being made at the government level as to what parts should be
retained for internal use. Miscalculation results in uprisings in the
population or else in major losses. In Brazil the soybean has been a
large factor in enhancing differences in income, and this naturally
increases social tensions.
Everywhere in the world one senses the weakness of the present
system, which should now be providing "daily bread" for everyone. It is
not only oceans that separate producers from consumers or the animal
from the source of its fodder, but also the factories with their
complex manipulations that bring the food and feed into a state fit to
consume. A variety of political measures, only marginally attuned to
economic considerations, are further disturbances. The slightest push
can endanger an entire nutritional system, though we may still hope
that the close economic ties will prove capable of calming
international conflicts.
It seems a further effort of America to undermine the
self-sufficiency of every country, and thus to have them all in its
power. The European Union has set out on the path suggested to it
without reservation, a path of no return.
What is left for us to do? Too many interests, to say nothing of the
whole outer framework of our civilization, oppose a political shift.
Little can be expected from this side with the best of will. It is only
local, individual initiatives that can bring about a new beginning
independent of government. And only a spiritual-scientific basis gives
agriculture the powers of resistance it needs in the long run to oppose
the general tendency that is standardizing every sphere, subjecting
them to purely economic points of view. But it is just as certain that
every consumer who has learned to value the foods provided by such an
agriculture must take a firm stand for its survival.
When we reflect on all this, we can sense why Rudolf Steiner
returned to Dornach in June 1924 so deeply pleased with the Koberwitz
agricultural conference. He was able to give us this cycle of lectures
nine months before his death, lectures that lead much closer an
understanding of what goes on in nature and that give us the hints that
have led the biodynamic movement. Every single person who is able to
acknowledge Rudolf Steiner must take this impulse to heart, for through
it we are given the possibility to establish the basis for a truly
human future.
The author, born in Stuttgart, is a leader of the biodynamic
movement in Chatou, Paris, and translator of Rudolf Steiner's
Agricultural Course into French. She has taught in the biodynamic
farming school in L'Ormoy, France. This article-its first part highly
condensed here - first appeared in the French periodical L'esprit du
Temps. A German translation was published in Das Goetheanum for March
6, and March13, 1994.
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