CHICAGO (Reuters) — China will become an even bigger market for U.S. farm goods in coming years but obtaining accurate information on the country’s food situation will remain a big challenge, according to U.S. Agriculture Department Chief Economist Joseph Glauber.
“There is no question in my mind that China is and will become an even bigger market for feed grains,” Glauber, who retires at year-end after 30 years at USDA, told Reuters in an interview. “Obviously we’ve been saying that about China for a long time but the evidence certainly points in that direction now.”
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USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack said this week China had finally approved imports of a Syngenta biotech corn variety, MIR 162, after months of blocking imports of U.S. corn and distillers’ dried grains, a corn by-product, over the issue. During the ban China had turned to a corn substitute, sorghum, and U.S. exports tripled this year as a result.
“You look at the increase over the last year for sorghum in particular, it’s just clear the demand is there. These are short-term deterrents but over the long run I think this will become a very reliable market,” Glauber said.
In the current season, China’s boom has kept it the U.S. farmer’s best customer. USDA projects China will again account for more than half of all U.S. soybean exports, for instance, and more than 80 percent of U.S. sorghum exports. But Glauber said USDA’s task in assessing supply and demand in China and other rising but opaque economies remains difficult.
“I would love to have better information on a key developing country like China. It would be useful not just for the U.S. but the whole global trading system,” Glauber said, adding India and Indonesia as other examples.
Glauber said amid tight government budgets he was proud to help reinstate the U.S. Census Bureau’s important monthly reports on grain and oilseed stocks, crush and usage.
Glauber, who joins the International Food Policy Research Institute as an analyst next year, said the grain trade should not be concerned about his departure just after a 44-year USDA veteran, Gerald Bange, stepped down as head of the World Agricultural Outlook Board this summer. USDA, he said, had a deep bench of analysts to make the transition seamless.
He expects Bange’s successor to be announced “in early 2015.”
“I’ve interviewed candidates and made a choice. So it’s just a matter of it being formalized,” Glauber said.
