Posted on 09/29/2023 2:47:47 PM PDT by FarCenter
TOKYO -- U.S. corn prices have slipped to their lowest levels in almost three years as China ramps up imports from Brazil, cutting into demand for American exports ahead of an expected bumper crop.
Benchmark Chicago corn futures sank below $5 a bushel in late August and have remained down since. On Sept. 19, they dipped under $4.70 to the lowest since December 2020.
This comes amid a drop in purchases by China, the world's largest consumer of corn.
China's imports of U.S.-grown corn came to about 240,000 tonnes in August, down from nearly 1.5 million tonnes a year earlier, according to estimates from Refinitiv based on maritime shipping data. Meanwhile, its imports of Brazilian corn swelled from zero to around 580,000 tonnes. The gap widened in September to roughly 1.22 million tonnes from Brazil, versus about 70,000 tonnes from the U.S., as of Thursday.
The shift owes partly to a strong harvest that has made Brazil's corn more price-competitive. On top of this, "China's moves to diversify its sources of imported corn to improve food security have had an impact," said Ruan Wei of Japan's Norinchukin Research Institute.
China had relied almost entirely on American and Ukrainian corn, but this began to change in late 2022 as friction with the U.S. and Russia's war in Ukraine spurred China to steer away from both.
An analysis by the U.S. Department of Agriculture using the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index, a measure of market concentration, found that competition in China's import market increased 22% in the 2022-23 year compared with a year earlier amid an increase in purchases from Brazil.
The American share of China's corn market is following a similar decline seen in soybeans roughly a decade ago. Brazil's soybean production swelled in response to growing Chinese demand, and the South American nation overtook the U.S. to become China's leading supplier.
...so the price of bourbon will drop...?
Well done, Biden!
great more food for us
Corn isn’t food it’s animal feed. We need to stop turning it into fuel and go back to rockstar cattle status.
Lewis Carroll would never attempt to write something so absurd...
It is obvious that this is right wing disinformation. We all know that global warming has devastated crop production of the entire world. We are all starving. Biden told me so. He would not lie.
Actually, there is starvation in the world in nations that live under brutal marxist governments. China is not starving. China is an amalgamation of capitalism and totalitarianism and aggressive expansionism.
This is not the ear of corn you would eat at the Cracker Barrel.
Works for me.
Corn ethanol subsidizes animal feed via DDGS. That doesn’t make it right, but the economics are widely misunderstood.
The corn tortillas I made today is my counterargument.
We should be growing less Corn anyways .
This isn’t a good thing?
ROFL
"Well done, Biden!"
Corn Pop sad.
Corn/maize today is hybridized from stock that grew in warmer, drier climate. No surprise that a ‘drought’ year can still yield near record corn crops.
And wheat from Russia.
Don’t worry the taxpayer will be on the hook to inflate corn prices through ethanol. One of the stupidest things our government has done.
Prices go up, that’s bad. Prices go down, well that’s even a worse. Price is stagnate, it’s the end of the world
Agreed
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