Limited impact of deforestation- and conversion-free soy supply chains from South America on European producer and consumer prices

The EU is developing a law to ban the placing on the market of products associated with deforestation and forest degradation. This report estimates the impact of this law on soy supply chains, on EU producers feeding their animals partly with soy (meal), and on consumer products where soy is embedded. More concretely, this study estimates the extra cost of deforestation-and conversion-free(DCF)soy supply from Argentina and Brazil to the EU and the impact on the price of production and consumption in the EU, for e.g. pig meat, chicken meat, milk, beef, salmon and eggs. The study points out that for Argentina, in the highest-cost scenario, for a single trader who sets up a segregated DCF supply to the EU, these extra costs are about 1% of the cost of producing and exporting soy to the EU. In a more probable scenario, where Argentinian traders collaborate to setup a 100% DCF supply,the costs per tonne are three times lower. For Brazil the costs are estimated to be 10-20timeslowerthan for Argentina. This is due to the larger volumes exported from Brazil and reflects actions already taken in Brazil, including to comply with the Amazon Soy Moratorium. These costs will have very limited impact in the EU.With the highest-cost scenario for Argentina, the extra cost represents up to 0.2% of the average turnover of specialized farms in The Netherlands producing pigs, chicken meat, eggs or dairy. We estimate a slight decrease in the income of these producers of animal products in a transition period, varying between 0.3% for dairy farmers and 3% for pig farms, laying hen farms and poultry farms.In the “most probable scenario” the income for the farmers is estimated to decrease by up to 0.6% in a transition period.When the EU regulation is implemented, however, all European producers will switch to DCF soy for animal feed, and this cost increase will be passed on to the subsequent links in the supply chain through the functioning of the market. After the transition period, which may take a few years, there will no longer be a negative effect on producers' income. EU consumers will not notice an increase in the price of these products(all other things being equal). This is because under the highest-cost scenario the extra cost for DCF soy is only about 1% of the total cost to produce and transport soy to the EU, and because the cost of soy is only a fraction of the overall cost of consumer products. More concretely, the average price of a kilogram of pork meat in Belgian supermarkets is currently €8.18;when the EU law comes into place, the price will still be €8.18, all other things being equal.