EU regulation at the centre of the discussion
Argentina’s meat and soya exports would be affected by a regulation of the European bloc of countries.
Communication published in AgroNoa: https://agronoa.com.ar/una-normativa-de-la-ue-en-el-centro-de-la-discusion/
At the Aapresid Congress, the panel ‘Regulations, traceability and qualifications in international markets, threat or opportunity?’ was held to analyse the entry into force of the European Union (EU) regulation not to import raw materials and derivatives from deforested areas after 2020, including meat and soybeans from Argentina.
Laura Villegas, Manager of Market Development and Corporate Affairs at RTRS (Round Table on Responsible Soy) spoke about the EU Regulation on Deforestation Free Products and explained ‘that it is part of a series of ambitious actions of the EU Green Pact, focused on combating deforestation, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, protecting biodiversity and ensuring respect for human rights’. He said that this regulatory scenario is a trend, and said that there will probably be a revision of the regulation next year that will extend the regulation to maize and its derivatives.
He also referred to other Directives under development that in the near future would include broader social and environmental requirements; and in this context there are production certification and traceability standards that are positioned as complementary and strategic management tools.
‘From the RTRS perspective, in these new market conditions it is important to decide to focus on opportunities. Continuous improvement is necessary not only from the point of view of processes but also from the point of view of creating a differentiated value proposition, in this case of Argentinean environmental assets. Anticipate, implement management solutions to create differential products (carbon, cover crops, among others) and meet market demands,’ said Villegas.
In turn, Andrés Costamagna of the Argentine Rural Society, criticised the EU’s measure for ‘using climate change as a geopolitical strategy’ to continue regulating trade, and he criticised the bloc for saying that ‘it is not possible to think of a peaceful world if there is hunger’. ‘If states make bad decisions, there are more poor people,’ he said.
The farmer assured that Argentine producers ‘are resilient’ and ‘we measure everything that happens, with its results’. With this, he dared to challenge: ‘We are going to reduce the carbon balance, not only to measure the environmental footprint, which is only one aspect. We want to be triple impact: economic, social and environmental. We are going to know the standards and prepare ourselves because they are, in the end, a human management tool.
Costamagna highlighted the fact that, in the face of this move, producers, industry and exporters are working together. ‘We have to be on the inside so as not to lose the market for producers,’ he said, “but all this has to be cheap and easy”. This reference was aimed at the Visec platform (Visión Sectorial del Gran Chaco Argentino), designed to guarantee deforestation-free exports of products from the soy and meat complex.
‘It is a voluntary and free system and more than 5,000 producers in Argentina have already been trained,’ said Gustavo Idígoras, president of Ciara-CEC and head of the Visec platform.
Alejandro O’Donnell of Aapresid regretted that ‘the Argentine production system is little known in the world, because 90% of agriculture is done in no-till farming, which is the only system capable of fixing carbon’. ‘We are part of the solution; clearly, we are not the problem, but we have to prove it,’ he said.
