Indirect Land Use Change (ILUC) continues to play an important role in discussions on agricultural sustainability, biofuels policy, and international trade. In this context, soybean production is frequently linked to deforestation and wider land-use concerns, making it a particularly sensitive topic for policymakers and stakeholders across the agri-food chain.
Euroseeds continues to support science-based, proportionate, and internationally aligned approaches to addressing ILUC-related concerns. The association underlines the importance of recognising the diversity of soybean production systems across different regions and avoiding broad assumptions that could unintentionally undermine sustainable production and trade.
Against this background, Euroseeds is actively engaged in coordinated advocacy efforts in response to the proposed classification of soybeans as high ILUC risk. Together with other industry and farming organisations, the association is working to raise awareness among EU policymakers about the potential economic, agricultural, and strategic implications of the measure.
Concerns have been raised that the proposed classification may not sufficiently reflect the complexity of soybean production systems and could have unintended consequences for the soy, feed, and biofuels value chains. Euroseeds also stresses the importance of ensuring consistency with broader EU objectives, including protein autonomy, resilient farming systems, and support for domestic agricultural production.
Recent exchanges among stakeholders have focused on coordinated outreach to both the Council and the European Parliament ahead of important scrutiny deadlines. As part of this broader effort, Euroseeds has joined calls for a practical, evidence-based, and proportionate policy approach, while also highlighting the specific role of seeds for sowing within the agricultural value chain.
Through this engagement, the sector aims to ensure that sustainability objectives are pursued in a way that also reflects the realities of European agriculture and supply chains.
