AgroPages-Argentine soybean: the better option for the Chinese feed industry, but with a limited offer-Agricultural news

Photo: Argentinian farmers in a soybean field. The country produces 56 MMT but 46 are crushed locally

It is supposed that forced by the trade war with the US, the Asian giant will redirect its purchases to the Mercosur soybean offer, and, that is probably that a minor share of the purchases is soybean meal from Argentina. But from JCI China they show skeptical about this possibility. “Great respect that the Argentina officials are making continual efforts to get the approval from China. But currently importing soybeans from Argentina is much profitable than meals”, they said via Twitter to eFarmNewsAr.

Clearly, the following chart from JCI China shows that for the Chinese feed industry Argentine soybean is the better option, ahead of the Brazilian origin.

But a source in the local crushing industry showed optimistic about the chance to export soybean meal to China, in a dialogue with eFarmNewsAr.com.

“First, Argentine soybean output is far from the Brazilian one, and our offer of the bean is limited in comparison both with Brazil as the US. Second, we have a large crushing industry, able to crush more than all the national soybean production. Argentina is the major soybean meal and soybean oil world exporter, based on an ultra-competitive and large-scale industry, which is able to operate in hard market conditions”, the source explained.

“Of course, the chance to export soybean meal will depend not only on the economic margin of the Chinese feed and crushing industry but in the levies that their Government imposes to our product. But if we achieve the approve, we will have given a big step. I remember that China habilitate local slaughterhouses in 2012, but the boom of beef exports just began in 2016. The trade war with the US could help us, but we will wait until the market conditions are favorable to us. Meanwhile to be greenlighted by China is a great news”, the source added.