Brazil set to overtake the US as the world’s largest soybean producer
American farmers hit by US-China trade conflict and extreme weather Brazil is racing ahead of the US as the world’s largest soybean producer, as a trade war and extreme weather take a toll on American agriculture. The Latin American country’s newly planted crop is likely to yield 121.1m tonnes of soybeans in early 2020, agricultural agency Conab said on Tuesday. That is 25 per cent more than the just-harvested US crop of 96.6m tonnes. “This is the first time ever, it appears, that we will have a smaller…
USA soybean farmers count the cost of the trade war with China
Between September and December, soybean volumes shipped through Cargill’s river terminals in Louisiana are down 40 percent year on year. After US President Donald Trump imposed new tariffs on Chinese goods, Beijing punched back with duties on US exports including most of its $20bn in agricultural commodity sales. Soybean exports, worth $12bn in 2017, were hit hardest. The oilseed’s conquest of farm fields in the past 20 years has largely been down to US farmers gambling on China’s demand for…
