World, European and French trade in oilseeds[Les échanges mondiaux, européens et français d'oléagineux]

This paper focuses on the evolution of world, European and French oilseed trade over the last twenty years (since 2000). The statistical information used comes from three complementary databases, namely BACI for international trade, Comext for European Union (EU-27) trade and French Customs for French trade. World trade in oilseeds amount to 161 billion euros in 2020 (excluding intra-EU trade), or nearly 15% of international trade in agri-food products. These are dominated by soya (51% of the total in value), in its various forms (soya beans, soya meal, soya oil), ahead of palm oil (17%), sunflower (8%) and rapeseed (8%). In 2020, the top three oilseed exporters are Brazil (19% of world exports in value), the United States (18%) and Indonesia (11%). While the first two countries export exclusively soya, the third is specialized in palm oil. China has become the world's largest importer of oilseeds (28% of the total in 2020), ahead of the EU-27 (15%), whose deficit for these products (-21.3 billion euros in 2021) is sometimes linked to its large surplus in animal production (47.5 billion euros). France has a deficit in oilseeds (-1.83 billion euros in 2021), mainly due to its purchases of soya meal from the American continent; the latter, which is the subject of controversy because of the deforestation induced in the Amazon, has however decreased by 31% in volume between 2000 and 2021.