Division 04
Agriculture
Food and feed on GAFTA and FOSFA terms. Every cargo here is biologically active when it is loaded and different when it arrives — which is why the clause that fixes where quality is determined is worth more than the specification above it.
The division
The cargo changes on the voyage. The only question is who agreed to own that.
Grain respires. Oilseed splits into free fatty acids. Coffee takes up moisture from a container that sweats, and a bread wheat can lose its falling number in a warm hold. None of that is fraud and most of it is nobody's fault — it is what agricultural cargoes do.
Which is why this division is organised around the trade association contracts rather than around a specification sheet. GAFTA on grains, FOSFA on oilseeds and vegetable oils. Both provide the same thing: quality and condition determined by a named independent superintendent at a contractual point, to published sampling rules, with a certificate that binds both parties and an arbitration with short and strictly applied time limits.
Agree that clause and a disappointing outturn is a commercial event with a known owner. Leave it vague and you have a dispute with no floor under it. We settle the determination clause before the specification on every enquiry here, and we will tell a buyer plainly when the terms in front of them leave the risk somewhere they have not noticed.
The desks
Six books on trade association terms.
Grains
Milling and feed wheat, corn and barley on GAFTA terms. The determination clause outranks the specification, because grain is alive when it is loaded — and falling number can be right at loading and wrong at discharge.
Oilseeds
Soybeans, sunflower seed and rapeseed for crush. A crusher buys oil and meal, not seed, so oil content, protein and free fatty acids are the price. Soya is in scope for EUDR from 30 December 2026.
Sugar
Raw VHP for refiners and white refined ICUMSA 45 for consumption markets. Two different businesses, two futures contracts in two different units, and one designation that is misused more than any other in the food trade.
Coffee
Green Arabica and Robusta by origin, screen and defect count. Every parameter is measurable except the one that decides the sale, which is why coffee contracts have a sample approval step no other commodity needs.
Cocoa & Cotton
Cocoa graded by cutting a hundred beans in half; cotton by an instrument measuring fibre to two decimal places. Cadmium and EUDR live on one side, contamination and micronaire bands on the other.
Edible Oils & Dairy
Palm, sunflower and soybean oil, and full cream and skimmed milk powder. The cargo carried in the tank before yours is part of your specification — and on milk powder the heat class decides the application.
Deforestation
One regulation now runs across four of these desks.
The EU Deforestation Regulation covers cattle, cocoa, coffee, oil palm, rubber, soya and wood. Four of those sit on this book: soya under oilseeds, coffee, cocoa under softs, and palm oil under edible oils.
Following the revision agreed at the end of 2025 it applies to all operators from 30 December 2026, with micro and small enterprises given until 30 June 2027. What it requires is evidence of deforestation-free production against a 31 December 2020 cut-off, legality in the country of production, and a due diligence statement — underpinned by geolocation of the plots where the commodity was grown.
Two things are worth saying plainly at division level. Plot geolocation has to be captured at the farm and survive every bulking step; it cannot be reconstructed at a port or purchased as an attestation. And a sustainability certification — RSPO, Rainforest Alliance, Fairtrade, organic — is a different instrument and does not satisfy the regulation. We build the geolocation and legality file with the origin ahead of the date; the due diligence statement remains the obligation of the EU operator placing the goods on the market, and we will not represent otherwise in a contract.
Across the division
The three things that do not change by product.
The determination clause, not the specification
Where quality and condition are determined — load port, discharge port, or split between the two — decides who carries the risk on a cargo that changes in transit. We agree that clause first, because it is worth more than the specification.
The intended use sets the limits
Mycotoxin, contaminant and residue maxima are set by the food or feed use in the destination, not by the commodity. The same parcel can be compliant as feed and non-compliant as food, so the intended use goes into the contract and the testing is done before shipment rather than at the border.
Independent determination, every cargo
A superintendent is appointed for the consignment — SGS, Bureau Veritas or Intertek — instructed jointly, with sampling to the association's rules and sealed retained samples held for the claim period. We do not accept a seller's own analysis as governing and we do not ask a buyer to accept ours.
Moved
The fertiliser slate is now its own division.
Nitrogen, automotive urea, sulphur, phosphate, potash, NPK and feed additives were part of this division and are now Fertilisers & Nutrients.
The reason is that they share nothing with the pages above except that one grows the other. Food and feed move on GAFTA and FOSFA contracts to millers, roasters, refiners and spinners; fertilisers move on none of that, to farmers, blenders, acid plants and feed mills, under explosives-precursor law, carriage hazard classification and CBAM. Two different sets of buyers and two different sets of arguments, and keeping them in one division meant the hub had to open by explaining that it was really two.
Technical Library
Specifications are released, not published.
Grade tables, contaminant schedules, contract forms and product datasheets sit behind an identified request.
This is deliberate. A published specification reads as a standing offer, dates the moment a crop year changes, and gives a counterparty grounds to hold us to a figure we never quoted. Contaminant limits in particular are amended regularly, and a stale table on a website is worse than none. Tell us what you are evaluating and we will send the current document.
Enquiries
Every enquiry is answered by the desk that handles it.
Send the product, quantity, delivery basis, destination and timing. We revert with availability, an indication and the documentation that accompanies it. Specifications are released once we know who we are speaking with.