Cargill is the leading exporter of grains and by-products in Argentina

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – In 2021, Cargill topped the Argentine ranking of exporters of the products (grains, flours, and vegetable oils) under the DJVE obligation. It was closely followed on the podium by Cofco and Viterra.

Based on data from sworn export declarations (DJVE), external sales commitments for grains and by-products (wheat, corn, soybeans, barley, sorghum, sunflower, rice, peanuts, among grains, plus flours and vegetable oils and some pulses) amounted to 117 million tons in 2021, almost double that of 2020, but below the record reached in 2019, the Rosario Stock Exchange consigned.

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In 2021, Cargill ended up being Argentina’s main grain exporter, declaring 15.1 Mt of exports of grains, pulses, flours, and vegetable oils (12.9% of the total). In second place in the ranking of exporters was Cofco with 14.4 million tons (12.3% of the total).

China National Cereals, Oil & Foodstuffs (Cofco) is a state-owned Chinese holding company focused on purchasing grains for food processing. This company is a key player in China’s food supply and food security, accounting for a dominant share of the country’s grain imports and handling domestic grain logistics. It is also partly responsible for storing the state’s corn and rice reserves.

Just below, in third place in the ranking is Viterra, with its subsidiary Viterra Argentina exporting 14.35 Mt (12.3% of the total). The clarification should be made since Glencore Agriculture was renamed Viterra at the end of 2020, and the local subsidiary company, Oleaginosa Moreno Hermanos, was renamed Viterra Argentina.

Glencore continues to be the main shareholder of this company, which has now changed its name. The local subsidiary, which owns 66.7% of the Renova complex and 100% of the Moreno plants, has a high capacity and efficiency in the industrialization of oilseeds in Argentina, which allows it to be among the top exporters of oilseed by-products in our country.

In corn exports, the podium is made up of ADM (8.84 Mt), Cargill (7.97 Mt), and Cofco (7.21 Mt).

ADM (Archer Daniel Midland) is with Bunge, Cargill, and Dreyfus in the so-called ABCD Group of multinational grain exporting companies. Together with Cofco, Wilmar, and Viterra, they are part of the well-known ABCD+ group of the seven largest global trading companies.

ADM has had strong participation in Argentina since purchasing an 80% stake in Toepfer. Its facilities in Argentina do not process oilseeds, so it specializes in grain exports.

In wheat exports, the main positions were for COFCO (3.16 Mt), Cargill (2.39 Mt), and Bunge (2.29 Mt). In soybean exports, the national cooperative ACA (1.22 Mt) was in the lead, followed by another cooperative, but based in the USA, CHS (1.22 Mt) and Cargill (0.51 Mt). Thus, it became the third-largest exporter of soybean and the fourth largest exporter of wheat in 2021.

In the case of the export of oilseed by-products, Viterra ranks first for the above in the export of both soybean and sunflower oil and meal.

Regarding soybean oil, the export ranking indexes the possession of biodiesel plants since many of the terminals can produce biofuel based on oilseed oil, depending on the conditions in the international market. In 2021, Molinos Agro ranked second (0.80 Mt), followed closely by Cargill (0.75 Mt).

The second place in exports in sunflower oil went to Cofco (0.16 Mt), followed closely by AGD (0.10 Mt). The second place in soybean meal exports went to AGD (3.96 Mt), followed by Molinos Agro (3.87 Mt). Finally, the second place as a sunflower meal exporter is AGD (0.21 Mt), followed closely by Cofco (0.15 Mt).