China makes major U.S. sorghum purchase

Mar 11, 2019

The purchase is China’s largest since the trade war with the U.S. began

By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com

China made its largest purchase of a specific U.S. ag commodity since the trade war between the two countries started in February 2018.

This year, between Feb. 28 and March 7, China bought 2.6 million bushels of American sorghum, the USDA’s Foreign Agricultural said in its latest export sales report on Thursday.

The purchase is a sign that trade negotiations are moving in the right direction, the National Sorghum Producers (NSP) said.

“The vessel purchase is great news for U.S. sorghum, and we are thrilled to see it on the books going into the 2019 planting season as hopefully a first of many,” Dan Atkisson, chairman of NSP, said in a statement Thursday. “We believe today’s news is a direct result of meetings between our two nations’ leaders, and we appreciate both administrations continuing to press forward to achieve a long-term agreement in U.S. and China trade relations.”

The U.S. exported about 205 million bushels of sorghum to China during the 2016-17 marketing year. Those export figures dropped to about 5 million tons during the 2017-18 marketing year as two countries imposed tariffs.

Those import levies included China applying a 179 percent tariff on U.S. sorghum imports in April 2018. China lifted that tariff a month later.

Other markets bought U.S. sorghum in China’s absence, but none could make up for China’s market share.

“We had a short crop and there was a lack of a market,” Jason Lee, general manager of Planter’s Co-Op, a grain elevator in Odem, Texas, told the Corpus Christi Caller-Times on Monday. “Mexico is in the market, so they bought some of our supply … but there just simply wasn’t the demand.”

Sorghum/Mailson Pignata/iStock/Getty Images Plus

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.