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Oléagineux, Corps Gras, Lipides. Volume 10, Number 3, 178-86, Mai 2003, Colza : enjeux et nouvelles synergies de la recherche, ÉCONOMIE

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Author(s) : Yves DRONNE

Summary : Rapeseed is in European Union (EU) the first oilseed produced locally, the first vegetable oil produced and used in this area, and an important protein feed for animal production, beside soybean meals that are mainly imported from North and South America in form of seeds and meals. Though more and more diversified, potential markets for rape co‐products, remain very important for feed, food and technical uses, crops have been increasing very slowly for many years because of competition with other plant productions in the EU, especially wheat, and because of the important pressure on world markets prices where soybean meal is more and more the dominant product for high protein feed and soybean and palm oils for vegetable fats. This situation is in relation with the evolution of Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in which, for the application of Agenda 2000, oilseeds have been submitted to a "down" decouplage with a reduction of the subsidies for these products to the level of cereals, while in the United States, for application of the Fair Act in 1996, oilseeds have benefited an "upper" decouplage with attribution of the advantages previously reserved to cereals. The transformation of price support into income support for soybeans and other oilseeds with of marketing loans contributed to a collapse in international meals and oil prices that had large impact on foreign oilseeds producers including those of the EU. This evolution of rapeseed co‐product prices has been aggravated by huge increases of soybean productions in Brazil and Argentina and palm oil in Malaysia and Indonesia. Despite these problems rapeseed still has many advantages for European agriculture. Facing imported products which come more and more from GMO seeds and for which traceability is increasingly difficult to guarantee, consumers and users for animal feeding can be sensible to the guaranties that present this oil and this meal. Now that the EU is no longer submitted to oilseed maximum areas inherited from Blair House, it is important that rapeseed carries on benefiting from important research efforts so that its yield can grow at the same rate as cereal yield, and that the obtention and cultivation of new varieties with improved composition in oil and protein, can make these products more competitive to soybean in their various fields of utilisation. It is also important that the interest of this crop in an environmental point of view, for instance for diversification of rotations, can be completely recognised by the European policy.

Keywords : rapeseed meal, non food, international trade