Imports of grain and animal feed from Mercosur countries to Ireland from January to October 2025 totalled approximately 654,425t, according to data from the Central Statistics Office (CSO). The 2025 imports so far are valued at almost €192m by the CSO.
With two months of data still to be added to the figures the imports are on track to be similar to the previous two years. A massive 1,066,216t were imported from January to December 2023 and 1,006,825t were imported from January to December 2024.
To put this into perspective, just over 4m tonnes of grain and protein were imported into Ireland in 2024, so Mercosur grain accounted for about 25% of this grain.
The imports were made up mainly of maize, soybeans and oilcake from soybeans, otherwise known as soybean meal. A massive 436,277t of soybean meal sailed from Argentina, while 204,763t of maize and over 7,000t of soybean meal are reported to have come from Brazil.
Almost 6,000t of soybean meal came from Paraguay, while there were no imports from Uruguay according to the raw data.
It should be noted that these figures may not include Mercosur grain that may have travelled through Northern Ireland, the UK or another destination to get to Ireland.
Some buyers of produce were afraid to purchase stock that would not meet the requirements of the new EU Deforestation regulations at the end of 2025, while other reports suggested that there was enough soya ordered into the spring time before the introduction of the regulations were delayed.
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