Centro de Excportadores de Cereales (Grain Exporters Association of Argentina) foundation act was signed by representatives of nine companies in an office on Corrientes Avenue, Buenos Aires, on May 26 1944.

With an extinguishing Second World War (1939-1945) in the background, and a fund-raising campaign to aid the victims of the earthquake which destroyed San Juan province in January 1944, that year opened with bad omens for the crop year due to the dramatic damage caused by cryptogamic (filamentous fungi) diseases. Consequently, the wheat harvest, representing one of the country’s key produces, had fallen by 16.5% in two months (from 8.5 to 7.1 million tons).

The context of the times was no better. Although in the years following the First World War (1914-1918) Argentina was the second word exporter of grains (first of corn and linseed), the price of farming products fell by 60% after the 1929-1931 crisis. On the other hand, the prices of manufactured products rose. The impact was highly significant given the fact that farming products accounted for 35% of world trade.

</p><p>Since then, grain production and export in Argentina have shown significant increases.  Wheat evidenced considerable growth from the 1944/45 campaign -contemporary to the foundation of CEC- to that of 2011/2012. Its production rose by 32.5% and its exports, by 490%. Corn production grew by 66.4% in the same period, and its exports, by 3,163.6%. Finally, soybean production soared by an exponential 85,762.7% , from zero sales abroad to 9.1 million tons exported in the 2011/12 campaign of soybean alone.

Centro de Exportadores de Cereales (CEC or Grain Exporters Association of Argentina) was founded in 1944 with the main objective of protecting and promoting the interests of the exporting activity of grains, oilseeds, their derivatives and byproducts.