MAPA publishes new procedures to expand peanut exports

On Thursday, March 25, the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Supplies (MAPA) published, in the Official Federal Gazette, normative Instruction No. 126, which regulates the criteria and procedures for the hygienic-sanitary certification of exported peanuts.

The implementation of the new regulation reduces the bureaucracy and simplifies the health certification of the exported product for companies with a high level of compliance (above 90%), and increases competitiveness in the export of peanuts to the European Union (EU).

According to the director of the Department of Inspection of Products of Vegetable Origin, Glauco Bertoldo, the current level of excellence in the international peanut trade is due to the commitment and investment made by the exporting industry. “In five years, we went from 43 interceptions of irregular product exported to just three in 2020. In the same period, Brazilian exports of the product more than doubled. Now, we will increase the competitiveness of the Brazilian product by simplifying the certification processes for agents that have a level of compliance above 90% in their production processes”, he states.

MAPA’s Secretary of Agricultural Defense, José Guilherme Leal, is optimistic about the prospect of access to new markets. “Negotiations on technical criteria with Georgia are already underway, in addition to the search for an agreement with China, which started a year ago,” he says. According to him, the evolution of the official certification system for Brazilian peanuts is advancing according to the guidelines of the Minister of Agriculture, Tereza Cristina, through risk management, process auditing, and self-controlling of agro-industries.

Peanut export

Since 2015, Mapa has developed a system for qualifying exporters based on individualized monitoring of the batches produced and annual audits at the peanut industrial and storage units that are willing to invest in laboratories, internal control processes, and product processing.

In 2020, 29% of exports of this commodity were destined for countries in the European bloc. Considering the increase in competitiveness, the quality of the Brazilian product, and the demand from the EU, the Ministry estimates that exports to this block will represent 60% of the total exported by 2023.

“MAPA’s expectation is that if there is a product supply, Brazilian peanut exports will be increased by 50% in the next three years, especially to the EU countries, an economic bloc that has the most restrictive health criteria and quality demands for peanut imports”, explains Bertoldo.

Currently, the state of São Paulo is responsible for the production of 90% of the peanuts exported by the country.

See the graph below for the history of Brazilian peanut exports since 2018:

Brazilian Peanut Exports (HS 2008.11) | Jan 2018 to Jan 2021 | TEU

Graph source: DataLiner (To request a DataLiner demo click here)

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