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Economist expects little short-term corn & soybean impact from China deal

An ag economist says the new China trade agreement is a good deal for agriculture, but it won’t have an instant impact on commodity prices. Brenda Boetel with the University of Wisconsin River Falls tells Brownfield, “When we’re looking at it for corn and soybeans, it’s a longer-term impact. We probably won’t see that dramatic increase in exports until this next marketing year, or until the 2020 crop comes in.”

Boetel says there are no known quantities for what products China will buy. “There’s a long list of agricultural products that can be on there, but it doesn’t anywhere say that we will buy ‘x’ amount of soybeans or that we will by ‘x’ amount of pork.”

She says China will have many American agriculture products available for purchase, but soybeans will probably not be high on China’s shopping list.

Boetel says even before the trade war, China would get soybeans from South America at this time of year, so that coupled with lower demand because of African Swine Fever affecting China’s swineherd, the U.S. probably won’t see much soybean sales activity for China until next marketing year.