From Agricultural Economic Insights, May 2:
Ever since China started making large purchases of corn in late 2020, variations of the question “what’s going on” have been circulating. Last summer, we wrote a two-part AEI Premium “What We Are Thinking About” memo (here and here) to frame up the situations. This week, we are highlighting one trend we believe has been largely overlooked: corn acres in China.
China’s Corn Production vs ConsumptionA fun and popular post for us to update has been “China’s Impact on Global Agriculture in 12 Graphs.” A key feature to watch in these charts is when China’s domestic consumption (gray bar) outpaces domestic production (yellow bars). When this occurs, especially for several years, China starts to rely on imports and, in turn, becomes a larger share of global trade.
Figure 1 shows that since 2015, China’s domestic corn production has lagged behind consumption. While a record 272 million metric tons of corn were produced in 2021, the trend has been mostly sideways from the 265 million metric tons crop raised six years prior.
What makes China’s recent flat corn production distinct is that 1) China’s corn production has overall been on an upward trend since 1970, and 2) domestic consumption has continued higher. China imported 29 million metric tons of corn in 2020 and 23 million metric tons in 2021. As a share of the global corn trade, China accounted for 16% (2020) and 13% (2021), the most significant purchases observed.
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