ABIOVE has spoken out against the EU’s proposal to phase out soy-based biofuel production

Brazil’s National Association of Vegetable Oil Producers (ABIOVE) has officially refuted the European Commission’s calculations based on which it plans to exclude soy biofuels from the EU’s green energy mix by 2030, according to S&P Global Platts.

In January, the European Commission presented a draft ban on the use of biofuels from feedstocks with a high risk of indirect land-use change by 2030. Palm oil and soy were identified as the main problem crops. The regulator believes their production leads to deforestation, but ABIOVE insists the statistics do not add up.

The main stumbling block is a study commissioned by the EU and conducted by the consulting firm Guidehouse. It claims that 14.1% of the global increase in soybean cultivation between 2014 and 2021 occurred on land cleared as a result of deforestation. This exceeds the 1% threshold for “high risk” status.

ABIOVE conducted its own analysis using the national MapBiomas system and Serasa Experan maps, and the resulting study estimated the actual share of soybeans growing on deforested land to be between 3.6% and 5.5%.

The association points to a methodological error: the EU used the period of deforestation since 2008 as its baseline, superimposing the final result on a short period of expansion in soybean cultivation from 2014 to 2021, resulting in an incorrect correlation of the data.

Even when Brazilian experts attempted to closely approximate the Guidehouse methodology (combining the soybean growth from 2014 to 2021 with deforestation that began only in 2008), they obtained only 10.4%. ABIOVE considers even this figure to be inflated, as the European approach inflated the actual area.

ABIOVE also criticized the so-called “productivity coefficient” for soybeans, which Guidehouse set at 1.0. According to the Brazilian side, this distorts the final classification of raw materials in the EU Renewable Energy Directive.

ABIOVE is calling on the European Commission to halt the adoption of the regulation and recalculate the data. The outcome of the dispute will determine whether Brazilian soybeans will be blacklisted in Europe or retain their place in the feedstock mix for biofuel production.

Tags: Brazil, soybean, deforestation, biofuel, soybean oil