The trade between India and Argentina has already touched $5 billion, with India importing soybean oil and exporting refined petroleum. And, recently, Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and the National Institute of Agricultural Technology (INTA), Argentina, signed Work Plan 2025-27 to strengthen bilateral co-operation in agricultural research, capacity building and technology exchange.
“This important step is the result of the historic summit between President Milei and PM Modi during the Indian PM’s visit to Argentina in July 2025,” affirmed Mariano Caucino, Argentina’s ambassador to India. He stressed the ‘high degree of complementarity between both economies’ and highlighted the efforts made by Mariano Beheran, Argentina’s agriculture attache, ever since the country opened its office in Delhi in 2019.
The secretary, Department of Agricultural Research & Education (DARE) and the director general, ICAR, exchanged the signed ICAR-INTA Work Plan with the ambassador of the Argentine Republic to India. The plan establishes collaboration across natural resource management, sustainable agronomy, including zero tillage, mechanisation, micro-irrigation and fertigation, crop & animal bio-technology, livestock improvement, production technologies for temperate and tropical crops, digital agriculture, bio-safety and phyto-sanitary measures, as well as value chain development. Its implementation will be through joint research, germplasm exchange, expert engagements and structured training and study visits.
Planned study visits and training programme cover greenhouse vegetable production, floriculture and temperate fruits, post-harvest physiology, functional food development, veterinary diagnostics, precision livestock farming, waste-to-wealth technologies, microbial feed enhancement, digital agriculture and sanitary and phyto-sanitary systems. Germplasm exchange will involve soybean, sunflower, maize, blueberry, citrus, wild papaya species, guava and select vegetable crops.
India and Argentina are also deepening co-operation in oilseeds and pulses value chains, as well as agricultural mechanisation, such as zero-tillage, cotton harvesting machinery and drones, and horticulture value chain development, including infrastructure and planting material exchange. In plant and animal health, it envisages region-specific foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) elimination strategies and enhanced collaboration on locust surveillance and management through technical exchanges and best-practice sharing.
Flow of edible oils
Both sides reaffirmed their commitment to the India-Argentina scientific partnership and agreed to monitor and review the activities annually, to ensure effective implementation and progress. “Bilateral trade between the two countries, standing at over $5 billion, is steadily expanding,” Caucino told Business India. “We can increase our contribution to India towards food security and energy security. As you may be aware, we export soybean oil and sunflower oil to India.” India-Argentina bilateral trade had peaked at $6.4 billion in 2022.
Several Indian companies have established presential/remote operations in Argentina, with total investments of over $1.2 billion,” informs the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA). “These include MphasiS, TCS, Comviva, Infosys, AEGIS-Essar, Crisil, UPL, Advanta Seeds, Bajaj Motorcycles, TVS, Royal Enfield, Hero Motors, Glenmark, Godrej and Sri Sri Tattva. Argentina’s investment in India stands at about $120 million, with Globant and OLX present in IT services and TECHNIT, in the engineering sector.”
India imports significant amounts of soybean oil from Argentina. In 2023, Argentina was the highest supplier of soybean crude oil to India. At present, nearly 65 per cent of soybean oil imports are from Argentina. “Imports from Argentina jumped to 12,16,291 tonnes from 4,50,602 tonnes during November-October (the marketing year for edible oils),’’ says the Solvent Extractors Association of India (SEA).