Jeff Flock of FOX Business talks to a farmer in Indiana about how the US-China trade has impacted his business.
After receiving more than $ 23 billion in federal aid from the Trump administration after the cascading effects of the United States trade war with China, corn farmer from Crown Point, Indiana, EJ Hein, says the agricultural industry needs fair trade, not aid, to move forward.
“We want a demand for our product,” Hein told Jeff Flock of FOX Business. “We would like to grow a crop, get a fair price for it. We don’t want government help ”.
Hein noted that while the trade war initially shook business, China is now the United States’ “biggest customer” for crops such as corn and soybeans.
Agricultural exports to China increased to 55.5 million tonnes in 2020 and accounted for a quarter of all agricultural shipments, according to data from the United States Department of Agriculture.
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Corn producers are not the only ones in the agricultural sector who are asking the government to focus on fair trade.
Texas rancher Kimberly Racliff told the Wall Street Journal that without fair trade, farmers “will not be able to get the full value of what we are selling”.
Paul Friborg, CEO of agricultural investment firm Continental Grain Co., told the Journal that the US-China relationship is the food industry’s biggest challenge.
“For the past four years, China has seen us as the enemy. That is a mistake,” said Friborg. “If we are not seen as trustworthy, it will destroy one of our biggest competitive advantages.”
Megan Dwyer, a farmer in northwest Illinois, added that rebuilding US infrastructure, including locks and dams along the Mississippi and other rivers, would help in the effort to sell more agricultural products abroad.
“To get to these places, we need infrastructure,” Dwyer told the Journal.
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The USDA predicts that farmers will plant up to 182 million acres of corn and soybeans, surpassing the previous record of 180.3 million in 2017. Corn and soybean plantations are expected to reach 92 million acres and 90 million acres, respectively, while wheat plantations are expected to reach 45 million acres in 2021.
On Tuesday, the USDA released its monthly global agricultural supply and demand estimate report, which said final soybean stocks for 2020/2021 were 120 million bushels, 405 million below last year’s record. The USDA projects an average season price of $ 11.15 per bushel, unchanged from last month. Meanwhile, the projected average agricultural price for the corn season is also unchanged from last month, at $ 4.30 per bushel.