FOX Business’ Jeff Flock talks to a farmer in Indiana about how trade between America and China has affected his business.
After receiving more than $ 23 billion in federal aid from the Trump administration following the ripple effects of the US trade war with China, Crown Point, wheat farmer EJ Hein in Indiana says the farm needs fair trade, not aid, to continue to go.
“We want a demand for our product,” Hein told Jeff Flock of FOX Business. “We want to grow a crop, get a fair price for it. We do not want government assistance.”
Hein noted that China, while the trade war initially faltered, is now the United States’ “largest customer” for crops such as corn and soybeans.
Agricultural exports to China rose to 55.5 million tons in 2020 and, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, accounted for a quarter of all farm shipments.
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Wheat farmers are not the only ones in farming who are urging the government to focus on fair trade.
Texas cattle farmer Kimberly Racliff told the Wall Street Journal that farmers without a fair trade do not want to get the full value of what we sell.
Paul Friborg, CEO of the agricultural investment firm Continental Grain Co., told the Journal that the relationship between America and China is the biggest challenge for the food industry.
“For the past four years, China has seen us as the enemy. This is a mistake,” Friborg said. “If we are not seen as reliable, it will destroy one of our biggest competitive advantages.”
Megan Dwyer, a farmer in northwestern Illinois, added that rebuilding U.S. infrastructure, including locks and dams along the Mississippi and other rivers, would help the pressure to sell more farmland abroad.
“To get those places, we need infrastructure,” Dwyer told the Journal.
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The USDA predicts that farmers will plant as much as 182 million acres of wheat and soybeans, reaching the previous record of 180.3 million in 2017. Wheat and soybean plants are expected to reach 92 million acres and 90 million acres respectively, while wheat plantings are expected. to cover 45 million hectares in 2021.
On Tuesday, the USDA released its monthly report on global agricultural supply and demand, which states that the soybean ending stock in the U.S. 2020/2021 is 120 million bushels, which is 405 million lower than last year’s record. The USDA projects a seasonally average farm price of $ 11.15 per bushel, unchanged from last month. Meanwhile, maize’s projected average price for the season is also unchanged at $ 4.30 per bushel.