Panelists at a recent meeting of agricultural ministers in Buenos Aires included [left to right] Fernando Camargo, IICA’s representative in Argentina; Andrea Parrilla, Brazil’s agricultural attaché in Argentina; Fernando Mattos, Uruguayan Minister of Livestock, Agriculture and Fisheries; and Agustín Tejeda, Argentine Undersecretary of Agricultural Markets and International Negotiations. (Photo courtesy of IICA)
Latin American agricultural producers and governments continue criticizing an impending European Union trade rule designed to discourage deforestation, but they appear to recognize the regulation will be implemented and are rushing to comply for fear of losing market share. The regulation, adopted in May 2023 and slated to take effect on Dec. 30, 2024, requires that exporters of certain commodities to Europe must show that the production of those goods did not contribute to deforestation from 2021 onward. The rule applies to seven commodities: beef, cocoa, coffee, palm oil, rubber, soy, and timber. It stems from the European Green Deal, a series of initiatives the EU endorsed in 2019 to address the global environmental crisis. In justifying the effort, the EU described its commodity imports as a “disproportionally large driver of deforestation” and estimated that from 1990 to 2008 Europeans consumed “one third of the globally traded agricultural products associated... [Log in to read more]
