Historically, China is the leading buyer of U.S. soybeans. Due to the trade war, China put a pause on buying the U.S. crop until recently. During that time, China purchased more and more product from Brazil.
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins recently made comments mentioning the U.S. needs to reduce reliance on China. That brought up the question during a panel at the Missouri Governor’s Conference on Agriculture of what should the next steps be in marketing American grown products.
“When I look at southeast Asia, Taiwan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, you know those are all countries that saw reduction in some non tariff barriers that we’ve been fighting in that region for a period of time,” said Ben Brown, senior research associate/extension agricultural economist University of Missouri. “Now, those countries many of them are in the top 10 population countries in the world. So were not talking about small countries. These are people that are going to consume product. It’s also a region we believe to see growth in protein potential moving forward.”
Brown also went on to say he predicts that non terrif barrier reductions could benefit markets moving forward. According to the USDA, Brazil is the number one soybean producer in the world, accounting for 40% of global production. Another topic of discussion was is the deal with China actually a good deal for American farmers?
“I mean I hope it is, and we need to have a good relationship with them but you know the other side of that coin is if you ask me ‘did he do right by calling them (China) into question?’ then the answer is yes,” said Dr. Joe Outlaw, professor and extension economist at Texas A&M University. “I mean this country for far too long has just been too go along get along with people and we need to have leaders that are going to enforce agreements that are going to get good agreements and hold peoples feet to the fire.”
Brown spent some time abroad in Brazil in college. He had some take aways to share discussing how Brazil became such a soybean powerhouse.
“One of the big challenges is the currency evaluation that we’ve seen,” Brown added. “When I was down there, a bushel of beans was more or less $10 right, that was what it was in the United States. That is what it was in Brazil. Here earlier this year, a bushel of beans was $10. You do the currency evaluation and the time I was there 10 years ago, $10 beans in the U.S. equated to about $30 beans for Brazil.”
Brown said that is the biggest challenge. He went on to discuss land use in Brazil and equipment sharing, and innovative ways to double crop, and the emphasis Brazil puts on public research. He says these are all areas the United States could look further into on how to improve at home.