This project is a contribution of CEIFA’s office in Germany to a large international project foccusing on the trade of soy beans and, more specifically, problems related to the export of soy beans that are produced in Brazil to be used in Germany (mainly for feeding animals). The project is beeing co-ordinated by the Evangelische Akademie Loccum, Germany, and integrated Brasilien and German researchers and stakeholders.

CEIFA’s task in this project is the development of a general method called “integrated flow analysis” to support interdisciplinary studies on international trade issues. Integrated flow analyses are based on the experience of eco-balances and life cycle assessment methods. The method departs from a simple diagram that represents only some important milestones of soy beans material chain. Though this first diagram only provides very aggregate information of specific issues (how materials move and physically change), it already shows the main advantages of the method: it allows a structured description of the issues at stake, while system limits and general links to several systems (environment, society, policy) become evident.

Accordingly to the concrete problem, further elements will be added – step by step – to the original chain and systematically linked to the elements already represented in the chain. Each enlargement step reveals not only new aspects of the problem but also allows a critical assessment of assumed linkages among the elements. An integrated flow analysis should therefore be understood as a dynamical process that allows enlargement of those paths that promise fruitful results and correction of those that lead to wrong results.

It is specially adequate for a consistent inter-linkage of interdisciplinary approaches that require highly specialised know-how at levels of deeper desegregation. With this method, complexity is not perceived as an obstacle for research, but a chance to structure and systematically analyse the relationships among very different components. The question of the right level of wideness and deepness is related to a general challenging methodological problem: how to set the system limits?

At the example of soy trade between Brazil and Germany we will address this question and show how this method can be used to set future priorities for research, policy and activities of the civil society.

Publication:
The full report of the Soy project is only available in German and Portuguese. For the German version please click the following Link (home page of the Evangelische Akademie Loccum) and then go to the item "Materialien"

http://www.loccum.de/index.html