Soy: A ‘Magic Bean’ Spells Trouble in India

NEW DEHLI, INDIA – The multibillion-dollar American soy industry has spent the last decade cultivating the Indian market. Now that their efforts are finally bearing fruit, it will mean record profits – but despite the soy industry’s often-trumpeted health claims, these profits could come at a dangerously high cost to the Indian environment and the health of its people.

Indian and American soy companies have created a wide range of products designed for the local Indian market – many of which are also available in Indian stores in the United States – such as soy-wheat atta (flour), Indian-made health bars, soy paneer, soy papadums, soy nuggets such as Nutrela meant for meat replacement, soy cooking oil, soy-enhanced Muesli cereal, vanaspati (artificial ghee made from soy and other vegetable oils), and even “dal analogues” made from extruded soy.
More than 80 companies in India alone produce flavored soy snacks; and in India, soy milks have enjoyed robust sales, with an increase from 400,000 liters in 2000 to 10 million liters in 2006, according to a report from the World Initiative for Soy in Human Health. Staeta and other brands of soy milk are popular in Indian-friendly flavors such as pista and kesar (saffron).

Two weeks ago, the American Soybean Association sent a delegation to New Delhi to explore the market in India, which is expected to explode in the coming years. According to Rashmi Rekha, director and chairperson of ProSoya Foods, the Indian market is expected to grow by 200 percent per year.

But a growing number of activists here and in India are warning the public about the ill effects of soy on society and health.

According to Kayla Daniel, a nutritionist who is the author of “The Whole Soy Story: The Dark Side of America’s Favorite Health Food,” soy products have been linked to thyroid and digestive problems; soy isoflavones can be carcinogenic; and hydrogenated soy oil has been linked to heart problems, obesity, diabetes, birth defects and senility.

Soy – a member of the peanut family – is also highly allergenic, she said.

Soy contains phytoestrogens, which mimic the female hormone in humans. These estrogens interfere with testosterone production, reducing the sex drive in men and lowering sperm count. Soy can also disrupt women’s menstrual cycles, even acting as a contraceptive.

Daniel’s book explains that exposure to soy in utero can also exert demasculinizing effects on unborn baby boys, and cites a recent upswing in birth defects such as genotypic males born with female genitalia; hypospadias (a birth defect in which the opening of the penis is located on the underside of the shaft); and undescended testicles. Other effects don’t show up until the boy reaches puberty, but may include small genitals and oversized breasts.

Fed to babies, soy infant formula (also called “baby milk” in India) has been linked to premature puberty in girls and delayed puberty in boys.

Soy’s effects on the environment are no less alarming: Soy is already the world’s number one genetically engineered crop, according to the pro-biotech International Service for the Acquisition of Agro-Biotech Applications. Sixty percent of the world’s land under cultivation by genetically engineered crops is given over to soybean cultivation, reports the ISAAA, but the effects of GE crops over time have not yet been determined.

One of the most widely used pesticides for soy in India, Endosulfan, has been linked to birth defects such as abnormal development, pregnancies without embryos, and higher rates of stillborn babies among populations exposed to soy fumigation.

The Monsanto corporation, which controls up to 90 percent of the world’s soybean seed cultivation market, according to CorpWatch, has patented its Roundup-Ready soybean seeds and designed them not to reproduce, forcing farmers to purchase new seeds – and its accompanying Roundup pesticide – each season.

Scientist and activist Vandana Shiva calls this monopoly “soy imperialism” in her book “Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply.”

She writes, “Every agency of government in the United States and India is being used by the soybean lobby to destroy agricultural and food diversity in order to spread the soybean monoculture.”

Around the world, soy is becoming increasingly prevalent in a wide variety of processed foods. Some foods that contain what Daniel calls “invisible soy” include spaghetti sauces, breads, cookies, whipped toppings, coffee whiteners, burgers and cooking oils and margarines.

Soy was brought to India from China, and has been grown in India for centuries on a small scale in Himachal Pradesh, Uttaranchal and eastern Bengal, but failed to catch on due to inadequate knowledge about its cultivation, lack of marketing and unfamiliarity with its utilization, according to B.B. Singh of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture in Nigeria. Currently, Madhya Pradesh leads India’s soybean production, with 66 percent of India’s individual and corporate farms. Maharashtra follows with 23 percent, followed by Rajasthan with eight percent (USDA figures).

In the 1960s, Indian universities teamed with the University of Illinois to explore ways to increase soy’s popularity. Today, an aggressive effort by international companies and the Indian government has resulted in India’s becoming the world’s fifth largest producer of soybeans, with nearly eight million tons of soy (including a million tons of soy oil) produced every year. But imports from the United States are expected to rise sharply, as demand within India is poised to outstrip supply within five years.

At the same time, India expects to double its soy exports, to countries such as Vietnam and Japan, a Reuters story reported in June.

This massive import/export phenomenon wastes resources, said Daniel in a phone interview with India-West last week.

“Ideally, it would be great if people grew locally what they wanted to eat,” she said. “But the major soy producers and other global companies push imports and exports.” Shiva writes that the practice erodes worldwide food security as well.

The soybean industry has led a masterful public relations campaign, said Daniel. The World Initiative for Soy in Human Health, an initiative spearheaded by the American Soybean Association, has widely publicized its work distributing soy products to populations in southern India after the 2004 tsunami. “The soy industry moves in after disasters,” explained Daniel. “In the short term, it’s good P.R. In the long term, it sets up a market for them.”

The American Soybean Association’s International Marketing team now pushes soy products to schools throughout India as well as to the canteens of the Indian military, and advertises heavily on television and other media, according to an August 2006 ASA-IM statement.

In addition, said Daniel, “People are starting to believe that lactose intolerance is widespread in India,” increasing the market for soy drinks and infant formulas.

One of the most disturbing stories from the public relations file can be found in Shiva’s book, “Stolen Harvest.” Up until 1998, mustard oil was the preferred cooking medium in Indian kitchens. Pressed from an indigenous oilseed, fresh, wholesome mustard oil was available widely and could be extracted by neighborhood oil “ghanis,” or extractors, in villages and slums at low cost. Mustard oil was used not just for cooking but also for therapeutic massages, as a natural mosquito repellent, and even to light diya lamps during Deewali – as the smoke from mustard oil acts as an environmental air purifier and pest-control agent.

But during August 1998, the city of Delhi was rocked by a mysterious and massive adulteration of mustard oil with the seeds of the deadly weed Argemone mexicana, as well as other, poisonous, diesel, waste oils and industrial oils. Those who consumed the adulterated oil suffered from nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, liver toxicity, kidney damage and heart failure. Within a month, the death toll reached 41, with over 2,300 people affected.

Immediately, the government banned the sale of mustard oil in Delhi, Assam, Bihar, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Tripura and Karnataka.

One month before the adulterated oil tragedy occurred, the Indian government had announced that it would import one million tons of soybeans for use as oilseeds. Later, the government introduced free importation of soybeans, and banned the sale of all unpackaged edible oils. Anil Hari Mowar of India’s National Dairy Development Board said, “There is a strong case for sabotage.” His thoughts were echoed by the Rajasthan Oil Industries Association and even the health minister of New Delhi, who said adulteration on such a large scale could only happen with an organized conspiracy.

Writes Shiva: “[The adulteration] was done in such a way that it could kill people quickly and conspicuously, and an immediate ban on mustard oil and free import of soybeans … became inevitable.”

Courtesy India West Online

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