First published Bloomberg By Isis Almeida and Kim Chipman.
Biblical flooding + farm labor shortage + enduring African Swine Fever = food crisis. CCP will be doing all they can throughout 2021 to secure the protein bag. Look for a crisis in 2021 involving PRC’s militarized fishing fleet.
China is so hungry for soybeans that it has started buying U.S. supplies from next year’s crop much earlier than usual.
The world’s top importer has been picking up American cargoes over the past week, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified because the trades are private. While buyers bought fewer than five cargoes, purchases came earlier than the usual end of the first quarter.
China is loading up on U.S. crops from corn to soybeans to feed a hog population that’s recovering from African swine fever, a deadly pig disease, much faster than traders and analysts expected. The Asian nation’s economy is also recovering from the coronavirus pandemic, helping boost demand for food.
“To me, it is an indication they have a big purchase program for next year,” said Stephen Nicholson, a senior grain and oilseed analyst at Rabobank. “The Chinese have such a big book to buy that just needed to get started sometime, because the longer they wait, the higher the probability of running the price up on themselves.”
The soybeans will load at U.S. ports in October, the people said, adding that Chinese buyers on Monday continued to ask for more offers for supplies from the 2021-22 season. Talk about the purchases helped lift futures traded in Chicago 0.5% for a brief period, after prices started the day in the red.
There’s also speculation that China will need to turn to the U.S. to buy supplies for February as dry weather is delaying the crop in Brazil, the world’s largest producer. The price difference between Brazilian and U.S. supplies for that month is now narrow, and it’s “almost impossible” to find offers from Brazil for the first half of February, according to Chicago-based AgResource.
“The delay in Brazilian seeding combined with recent dry weather has delayed the crop and pushed back maturation,” the consultants said in a report. “This has exporters scrambling.”
“Brazil has a quality and freight advantage into China, but other world importers will be prodded to cover their soy import needs from the US.,” AgResource said.
China may also be concerned about the impact a La Nina weather event could have on crops at a time Brazilian inventories have dried up.
“Without a doubt it’s unusual for China to be going out that far ahead at this time frame,” said Tom Fritz, partner at Chicago-based EFG Group LLC. “It might be a slight hedge against a short Brazilian crop.”
— With assistance
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It appears ironic that the government that unleashes covid19 upon the world will need the world’s help in recovering from their own covid19 depressed economy, and the world will have trouble helping them because of how covid19 has depressed the entire world’s economy. Sure China will buy all the soy beans and corn the world can produce but how much can the world produce if the farmers can’t afford fuel for their machines and seed for their acreage ? That dilemma being caused by the destruction of the food supply chain, it’s spotty consumption, due to the effects of covid19. As if farmers don’t have enough dilemmas just caused by weather patterns. But this article does make it sound like our farmers here on The Shore will have good reason to plant every acre that they can for 2021.
Actually this is a good thing. Soybean farmers use glyphosate on their fields to keep down weeds. This chemical has been found to cause cancer. I don’t eat soybeans or soy products as I don’t want to get cancer. But more power to the Chinese who are sending in spies to corrupt our politicians with sex and money. Maybe this is our strategy to get back at them for the Chinese Virus.