Grain markets moving on without the U.S.

Nov 14, 2018

Other countries are making up for a lack of U.S. grain

By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com

International grain markets are making significant moves to ensure they have a sustainable suppliers or customers as some American grain exporters await revamped trade deals.

Brazil, for example, is investing to increase its 2018-19 soybean acreage to 36.2 million hectares (89.45 million acres). The goal is to produce up to 120 million tons of soybeans to ensure sufficient supplies for China while it remains in a trade dispute with the U.S.

“A good harvest in the southern hemisphere should guarantee the supply of soybeans to China,” Andre Debastiani, a partner at Brazil Agroconsult, told an industry conference in China, Reuters reported yesterday.

Since China imposed a 25 percent tariff on U.S. soybeans in July, American soybean exports to China have dropped dramatically.

A U.S. customer in the Middle East is also starting to look elsewhere for its grain imports.

Iraq, which imported 3.2 million tons of U.S. wheat in 2015, is sending a delegation to Russia to discuss whether Russian wheat can fill a gap in Iraq’s supply chain.

The Middle Eastern country needs an annual wheat supply of between 4.5 and 5 million tons, and has an import gap of about 2 million tons per year, Reuters reported.

And a European corn producer is hoping it can step in to meet China’s needs in the absence of U.S. corn.

Ukraine is expected to produce about 27 million metric tons of corn this year. Of that crop, between 3 and 5 million tons may go to China, Nikolay Gorbachov, president of the Ukrainian Grain Association, said at the Global Grain conference in Geneva, Switzerland, Bloomberg reported.

Ukraine has also increased its exports of sunflower meal and barley to China, Gorbachov said.

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.