U.S. farmers have indicated they will push ahead with plantings planned before U.S.-China trade tensions eased. Now that the two countries have resumed trade talks, farmers have indicated they will take a wait-and-see approach to President Trump’s promise for more agricultural sales to China, according to a report from Reuters.
The. U.S. and China have pledged to keep talking about how China could import agricultural commodities and energy from the United States to narrow a $335 billion U.S. goods and services trade deficit with China.
After President Trump threatened to impose up to $150 billion in punitive tariffs to lower the trade deficit, China threatened equal retaliation, including tariffs on some of its largest U.S. imports, including soybeans and other agricultural commodities.
The reluctance of some farmers to adjust their planting plans, in light of the latest negotiations, indicate they are uncertain about the outcome of negotiations between the U.S. and China. For some farmers, it is simply too late to change their minds after purchasing seed and fertilizer. “We’re so far along in our planting season that we can’t change anything,” said John Brink, who grows corn, soy and wheat in Richview, Illinois.
As of last weekend, farmers had planted 81 percent of the U.S. corn crop, 56 percent of U.S. soybeans and 36 percent of sorghum, a grain used for livestock feed, according to USDA data issued on Monday.
The United States appeared to have won promises of more imports to China, although there were few specifics earlier this week. “The news is encouraging, but a lot of us on the farm would like to hear some contracted sales that have been placed,” said Monte Peterson, a soybean farmer in Valley City, North Dakota.
Kirby Hettver, who was wrapping up soybean planting on his farm in DeGraff, Minnesota, said he wanted to see a long-term deal in place before he makes any changes on his farm in respond to trade policy. “I view it as part of the process,” Hettver, president of the Minnesota Corn Growers associations, said of the latest stage of U.S.- China talks.
China recently dropped an anti-dumping investigation into U.S. sorghum that had raised costs for buyers of the grain. As a result, the U.S. Grains Council may dial back plans made during China’s investigation to find more buyers in other countries for U.S. sorghum, Chief Executive Tom Sleight said. “We may be not quite so aggressive now because China could come back as a huge buyer,” Sleight said. “You don’t want to build a big market and then not have something to deliver.”
The United States shipped 4.76 million tons of sorghum to China in 2017, worth about $1.1 billion and making up the bulk of China’s roughly 5 million tons of imports of the grain, according to Chinese customs data.
