October 6, 2010

China's corn imports from US may soar more than sevenfold

China's corn imports from the US may surge more than sevenfold by 2015, boosted by an accelerating pace of demand growth at a time when China is struggling to raise production, the US Grains Council (USGC) has said.

China's return to corn imports will, unlike in the 1990s, prove more than a temporary blip, with purchases from the US potentially rising from 2 million tonnes this year to 3 million tonnes next year, Thomas Dorr, USGC chief executive, said.

Dorr said that by 2015, as much as 15 million tonnes is expected to be exported into the China market, according to reports.

The forecast followed a crop tour of China which raised questions over official forecasts of a record 169-million-tonne crop. The council estimated the harvest at 158 million tonnes, on a yield of 5.39 tonnes per acre.

The yield last year, when the official harvest estimate of a 168 million tonnes was also widely disputed, produced a 5.1 tonnes per acre yield, with the record of 5.56 tonnes per hectare set in 2008.

Nonetheless, overall, yields had remained relatively static since 2002, and looked likely to remain "pretty flat" given the small size of Chinese farms, which prohibited productivity improvements, and the lack of genetically-modified seed.

"They are not able to use the modern farming practices that we have or have access to the seed technology that US producers have," Dorr said.

Meanwhile, the pace of consumption growth was also beginning to increase, boosted by demand from both industrial users and livestock farmers, he added.