Soybean imports into EU highlighted

Soybean is the most important oilseed crop imported to the European Union, ahead of rapeseed, according to the latest import figures.
EU-27 imports in the first four-and-a-half months of the running marketing year amounted to just under 4.9 million tonnes.
In the same period of the 2021/22 season, imports were around 900,000 tonnes larger. There were significant shifts in suppliers of both imported and processed soybeans.

Brazil and the US remained the top suppliers. By mid-November, around 1.7 million tonnes of soybeans had come into the EU from Brazil.
This was only half the previous year's volume of 3.4 million tonnes. Consequently, the share of Brazilian soybeans in total EU soybean imports dropped 23 percentage points to 36%.
The gap was filled by increases in deliveries from the US. More specifically, the US delivered around 2.1 million tonnes in the period 1 July to 11 December 2022, which was up 31% on the same period a year earlier.

Soybean meal is an equally important import commodity for Europe and its import volume was only slightly smaller than the previous year.
At 7.1 tonnes, soybean meal imports were down just less than 19,000 tonnes on the same period last year. Again, there were shifts in suppliers.
According to Agrarmarkt Informations-Gesellschaft, Brazil moved to the top of suppliers, delivering 800,000 tonnes more than in last year's period.
At 3.8 million tonnes, Brazil is now ahead of Argentina, which delivered just less than 2.6 million tonnes. This was down 600,000 tonnes year-on-year.