Argentina seeks to protect soybean exports after Dutch rejection over GM variety

Argentina is trying to preserve soybean cargo flows to Europe after the detection of an unapproved genetically modified variety in shipments raised the risk of broader rejections of the country’s main export product.

Farmers and crushing companies are stepping up efforts to isolate the drought-resistant soybean variety known as HB4 from the rest of the crop, Gustavo Idigoras, president of Ciara-Cec, the chamber representing oilseed crushers and exporters, said in an interview.

Although approved in countries such as Argentina and China, the variety, developed by Bioceres Crop Solutions, has not yet been authorized in the European Union.

The alert follows recent rejections of Argentine soybean meal cargoes by the Netherlands, where testing identified the presence of HB4. Although the country is so far the only EU member to block the shipments, it serves as one of the bloc’s main entry points.

“Several importers in Europe are paranoid right now,” Idigoras said. Ciara-Cec represents major global agricultural commodities traders in Argentina, including Cargill, Bunge Global and Cofco International.

Bioceres declined to comment.

For Argentine President Javier Milei, the issue carries significant weight: soybean exports are estimated to have generated more than $18 billion last year. Milei needs similar inflows from this year’s harvest to rebuild central bank reserves and signal to international bondholders that the cash-strapped country can meet its obligations.

The HB4 episode comes as Mercosur and the European Union begin provisional implementation of a free-trade agreement this month, while the bloc’s top court reviews the pact. The deal took 25 years to negotiate and faced strong opposition from European countries with large agricultural sectors.

To preserve soybean trade ties, Argentina’s industry has in effect placed the HB4 crop under a kind of quarantine.

“We are working with the food safety authority to ensure there is direct transport from every farm, in every truck, to a single port with no crushing facilities, avoiding any risk of contamination,” Idigoras said, adding that the sector has already georeferenced all areas planted with HB4.

“We need to convince importers and the European Commission that we are doing a very rigorous job to guarantee zero presence of HB4,” he said. “So far, it is a challenge.”

Only a few thousand hectares in Argentina are planted with the HB4 variety, which is still in the breeding stage and has not been adopted on a large commercial scale.

There is also a development program in Brazil. Even so, the contamination risk threatens Argentina’s entire crop, which spans about 42 million acres, as the EU typically buys about a quarter of the soybean meal produced, and the harvest is under way.

The plan is to ship the segregated HB4 production, unprocessed, to China, where the variety is approved, Idigoras said.

Alongside segregation efforts, the Argentine government and soybean exporters are lobbying the European Union to allow a minimum tolerance level in testing, even without Brussels having approved Bioceres’ request for low-level presence.

If Argentina fails to convince the EU that its cargoes are compliant, it will seek to redirect them to other markets, possibly in Asia, “but at the right prices,” Idigoras said.

Tags: soybean, soybean meal