US producers eye non-GM soy market in Indonesia

US soy producers plan to sell non-genetically modified (non-GM) soy in Indonesia, an industry official said late on Monday (March 22).

The North Dakota Soy Council and the American Soy Association (ASA) participated in a trade mission to Jakarta, with five American producers of non-GM soy.

Indonesia, the world's sixth-biggest soy importer, imports more than one million tonnes of soy annually, with about 90% of that sourced from the US. Susan Geib, Executive Director of North Dakota's trade office, said that none of the soy imported was non-GM.

Geib did not disclose how much non-GM soy is likely to be sold in Indonesia given that this is a new market.

The five non-GM producers are Brushvale Seed, Buchholz Seed Farm, JB Global, Sinner Bros. & Bresnahan, and SunOpta.

North Dakota produces 300,000 tonnes of non-GM soy - or about 10% of the total production of US non-GM soy of three million tonnes per year, said Robert B. Sinner, president director of Sinner Bros. & Bresnahan.

Indonesia depended almost entirely on locally grown soy until the late 1990s when cheaper imported beans started entering the market as a result of the International Monetary Fund's reforms.

The Statistics Bureau has forecast that Indonesia's soy output is expected to fall 1.1% to 962,539 tonnes this year.