"A Year of Hard Work Down the Drain": Siberian Farmers Unable to Sell Record Rapeseed Crop Due to GMO Tests
Siberian farmers are unable to sell their record rapeseed harvest due to GMO inspections. Oilseed exports to China have fallen fivefold, and processing plants have stopped accepting rapeseed from local farmers.
Siberian Rapeseed: Exports to China Stalled
Export to China, where almost all the oil produced went, collapsed five times, and shipments from Siberia — came to a near-complete halt. The reason for this was complaints from Chinese customs, which, at the end of 2025, began strictly searching for "traces of GMOs" in Russian butter.
GMOs in oil: inspections and factory refusals
In January, China blocked a thousand-ton shipment of oil from the Oryol region, threatening Russian exporters with complete market closure. This prompted Russia's Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance (Rosselkhoznadzor) to play it safe and impose extremely strict controls. State laboratories began detecting GMOs even in areas unseen by independent experts and the Chinese themselves. Consequently, processing plants have simply stopped accepting rapeseed from local farmers, fearing fines and inspections.
"A year of hard work down the drain," farmers complain.
Record harvest and falling prices
The situation hit farmers at the worst possible time – the harvest in 2026 reached a record high, and crops exceeded 1,7 млн hectares. In the Novosibirsk region and Krasnoyarsk Krai alone, they threshed almost 800 thousands tons. But there's nowhere to sell such a volume, and prices
fell from 40 until 26 rubles per kilogram.
Now farmers risk losing billions of rubles in revenue, meaning they won't be able to plant crops in 2027.
Rapeseed is a highly sought-after oilseed crop. Its seeds produce a popular edible vegetable oil, a raw material for biofuels and industrial chemicals, and the remaining pressed cake serves as a valuable, nutritious feed for livestock.
