China’s COFCO committed to Brazil soy-buying moratorium

Chinese state-owned grain trader COFCO is committed to Brazil’s soy-buying moratorium, Allan Virtanen, the company’s global director of communications and sustainability said on Friday, despite pressure from local farmers to make it less rigorous. Virtanen was addressing a news conference and declined to comment further. The soy moratorium is a voluntary commitment by global grain traders not to buy soy grown in areas of Amazon deforestation after 2008. COFCO, one of Brazil’s largest grain exporters, shipped 17 million metric tons of soy and corn from the South American country in 2024. Sergio Ferreira, COFCO’s director of operations in Brazil, told reporters the company expects to ship 18 million tons of both grains from the country in 2025. That does not take account of a possible trade war between the United States and China, which could shift more business to Brazil, he told Reuters on the sidelines of the news conference. Some 80% of COFCO’s grains commodities exports ...