Argentina: Economy Ministry maintains lower export duties for barley and wheat, restores those for soybean and corn to January values

Argentina’s Economy Ministry passed a decree restoring soybean and corn export duties to their January values from July 1 onwards. Barley and wheat will remain subject to lower duties until next year, UkrAgroConsult reported on July 1.

The government had already confirmed that the reductions would be temporary, but the move dashes the hopes of producers who had been holding out for a last-minute change of heart.

Friday’s decree established that export duties on wheat and barley will remain at 9.5% until March 31, 2026.

Soybean duties will increase from 26% to 33%, corn and sorghum from 9.5% to 12%, and sunflower from 5.5% to 7%. Wheat flour will remain at 5.5%.

The government initially cut export duties for some agricultural commodities in January. The break was initially intended to last until June, but was then extended to July, and it applied to soybeans, corn, sunflowers, sorghum, and all their byproducts. In May, the administration announced that it would extend the temporary reduction in export duties on wheat and barley, whose sowing is now in full swing, to 2026. These crops will be harvested by the end of the year.

Export duties for a plethora of agricultural goods, known in Argentina as regional products, were permanently eliminated. These included sugar, cotton, wine, tobacco, forestry products, and rice, among others.

With this policy, the government aimed to improve farmers’ profitability and incentivize grain exports in order to increase dollar inflows into the Central Bank’s reserves.

Economy Minister Luis Caputo had announced in May that the administration would extend the temporary reduction in export duties on wheat and barley, whose sowing is now in full swing. These crops will be harvested by the end of the year.

The head of the Argentine Rural Society (SRA), Nicolás Pino, said that extending reductions is “not the solution.”

“We won’t stop saying it: export duties must be definitively eliminated,” he told the Herald’s sister publication, Ámbito.

Coninagro, which represents farmers’ cooperatives from all over the country, said that raising duties again “generates great concern and inequality in the whole countryside, especially because the measure lands in the middle of production processes, many of which are unfinished as of June 30.” In a communiqué, they demanded “clear and lasting rules to achieve the predictability that we require as producers.”

Another farming group, Confederaciones Rurales Argentinas (CRA), demanded that the government conduct “an urgent review” on the matter. “We express our concern about the continuity and the negative impact that the reestablishment of export duties will have in an extremely adverse productive context,” they wrote in a communiqué.