BEIJING: China may have just handed farmers in the U.S. Plains a good reason to maintain or increase the already elevated corn and soybean acreage this spring.
DDGs are a byproduct in corn-based ethanol production and are used in livestock feed. Sorghum is also heavily used in feed and competes with DDGs, corn, and other grains.
Beijing’s heavy duties on U.S. DDGs have been palpable as Chinese imports of U.S. DDGs were nearly 90 per cent lower in 2017 than in 2016.
However, the United States has many other trade partners when it comes to DDGs, and its total exports through the first 11 months of 2017 were down only three per cent from the same period in 2016.
But exports are a big part of the U.S. sorghum market, and China has the leading role. On average, over the past five years, about 63 per cent of the sorghum produced each year in the United States ended up overseas, and about 80 or 90 per cent of those exports landed in China.
Kansas is the leading producer of U.S. sorghum, producing 49 per cent of the grain on average over the last five years. Texas is second with 28 per cent.
Last month, the U.S. Department of Agriculture projected that winter wheat plantings for the 2018 harvest in the top grower of Kansas had risen three per cent over the previous year, when area fell to a 60-year low. But some independent sources have disputed this forecast, suggesting instead that there are fewer acres in Kansas this year.
Farmers in the sunflower state are not afraid to plant corn and soybeans if the going is good. In 2017, Kansas farmers planted 1.5 million more acres of corn and soybeans than in 2016, totalling an all-time record 10.65 million acres.
