The Round Table on Responsible Soy was founded in 2005 by the World Wildlife Fund and the Swiss supermarket COOP. The aim was to make mainstream soy more responsible. The organisation has since been taken over by the industry and consists mainly of producers, banks, traders and industry. Members are for example Cargill, Monsanto and Syngenta. Shell and BP have also joined, because of the use of soy as a biofuel.

Very few organisations from civil society take part. No organisation of small farmers or indigenous people is involved. The only organisations that try to give an independent status to the RTRS are the WWF and the dutch NGO Solidaridad. The latter is at the moment president of the RTRS and is heavily sponsored by the Dutch government for this job.

From the start the RTRS has been heavily critisized by a large number of organisations from all countries, including the countries that suffer from soy production. The main critisism is that the soy monocultures can never be responsible and the RTRS is only greenwashing the massive destruction from the production of soy. Even worse, it is paving the way for GM crops. WWF and Solidaridad should seriously reconsider their position and the effect of their actions.

Further reading: see the document

Certified responsible? Critical assessment of the  Round Table on Responsible Soy

march 2011