10 I SEED WORLD EUROPE I SEEDWORLD.COM/EUROPE | OCTOBER 2026 E urope’s fight against deforestation has a clear objective: prod ucts placed on the EU market should not come from recently deforested land or contribute to forest degradation. Few in the seed sector would argue against that ambition. But Euroseeds warned that one part of the EU Deforestation Regulation, known as EUDR, risked catching the wrong target. The association argued that soybean seeds for sowing should be excluded from the scope of the regulation because they are not part of the commodity flows that drive deforestation. The European Commission has now taken that argument on board. In its Delegated Regulation amending the list of rel evant commodities and relevant products under the EUDR, the Commission removed soya beans used for sowing from the regula tion’s scope, recognising that they represent negligible trade volumes and are part of a separate value chain with distinct certification, testing and traceability systems. WHY IT MATTERS This is not just a win on a narrow customs code. It is a reminder that product scope matters in EU regulation. If seed lots are treated like commodity flows, rules designed to address deforestation risk can unintentionally create barriers for breeding, SMEs and seed movement. The distinction may sound technical, but for breeders and seed companies it is highly practical. Soybeans used for feed, food or crushing move through large commodity chains. Soybean seeds for WHEN SOYBEAN SEED GOT OUT OF THE WRONG NET THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION HAS REMOVED SOYBEAN SEEDS FOR SOWING FROM THE EU DEFORESTATION REGULATION SCOPE, ACCEPTING THE ARGUMENT THAT HIGHLY CONTROLLED SEED LOTS SHOULD NOT BE TREATED LIKE COMMODITY SOYBEANS. BY: MARCEL BRUINS sowing, by contrast, are small, highly controlled lots used for breed ing, seed multiplication and crop production. Euroseeds argued that treating both in the same way created a regulatory mismatch. The issue arose because the EUDR scope covered “soya beans, whether or not broken” under CN code 1201. The Commission has now replaced that broad reference with a more specific code that keeps commodity soybeans in scope while removing the sowing category. Clément Cardon, manager public affairs at Euroseeds, says the EUDR has an important environmental purpose, but regu lation also needs to be proportionate. “Soybean seeds for sowing are not commodity soybeans. They are highly controlled seed lots, from the breeding cradle, and used to produce crops and develop better varieties,” he says. The Commission’s adjustment recognises that applying the same deforestation due diligence logic to both, Cardon adds, “would create complexity without adding meaningful environmental benefit.” WHAT EUDR IS TRYING TO DO The EU Deforestation Regulation has been designed to reduce the EU’s contribution to global deforestation and forest degradation. It covers commodities associated with agricultural expansion, includ ing cattle, cocoa, coffee, oil palm, rubber, soya and wood, as well as certain products derived from them. Operators placing such products on the EU market, or export ing them from the EU, must be able to show that the products are European soybean breeding depends on access to diverse material and predictable rules for seed movement, testing and variety development.
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