Spain relaxes conditions for importing corn from Argentina and Brazil

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Food of Spain has published on Monday a resolution temporarily relaxing the specific requirements for imports of corn from Argentina and Brazil, which is expected to facilitate the import of raw materials for animal feed to make up for the stoppage of imports from Ukraine after the Russian military operation.

Given the uncertainty of maize supply caused by this situation, the European Commission called a meeting of the Member States on March 11 to analyze the measures to be adopted to relax specific phytosanitary requirements applicable to imports from third countries.

The department headed by Luis Planas met with the Spanish Association of Foreign Trade of Cereals and Similar Products (Aecec) on March 10 and has done so again on March 14 to discuss the flexibility measures affecting corn from Argentina and Brazil. In these meetings, it has been found that corn from the United States did not present any problem for these purposes, not being necessary any exceptional measure.

Based on the information provided by Aecec and after performing the corresponding risk analysis for ten phytosanitary products, it has been concluded that six of them do not present any problem in the light of the current legislation.

For the remaining four, the Ministry has agreed to establish an upper limit following the risk analysis, applying the regulation on maximum residue levels of pesticides in food and feed of plant and animal origin.

As a result, Agriculture has published this Monday the resolution, which will be applied temporarily for corn from Brazil and Argentina and for certain pesticide residues. According to the Ministry, this measure solves the technical problems raised by the importing sector and offers at the same time “certainty and flexibility” without jeopardizing food safety.

According to the department, the importing sector can buy corn for animal feed in the main producing countries of the world and, thus, guarantee the link in the supply of the livestock sector in Spain.

During his speech at the Breakfast Briefings of Europa Press, the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Food, Luis Planas, said Monday that there will be no food shortages in Spain, after the strong impact that is having the conflict in Ukraine, one of the main ‘granaries’ of Europe, in the food industry. However, it has advanced that it is working on importing some raw materials from outside the EU to have a greater supply.

There are corn stocks of between 45 to 60 days in Tarragona. “We are trying to respond to these purchases by facilitating imports into the EU,” said Planas.