TAMPA, Fla. – China is developing a hunger for U.S. corn 15 years after a provocative book spoiled its appetite for the product, says the U.S. Grains Council.
Council president Thomas Dorr told delegates attending the 2011 Commodity Classic conference that corn would have been exported to China years ago if it hadn’t been for a controversial book written by Lester Brown, former head of the Worldwatch Institute.
His 1995 book,Who Will Feed China?: Wake-Up Call for a Small Planet,postulated that the new China would need to import 200 million tonnes of corn a year.
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“It so upset the Chinese leadership that they said, ‘we’ll show you,’ ” said Dorr.
It wasn’t the suggestion that China would have to import corn that made them angry. Rather, it was the tone of the book and its insinuation that China couldn’t be self-sufficient.
China had set aside 65 to 75 million acres of land that was going to be seeded to high-value horticulture crops.
“Because of that particular book, that slight if you may, they decided they would do otherwise,” said Dorr.
The land was instead planted to corn and the crop joined wheat and rice on a list of cereal grains for which China wanted to be 95 percent self-sufficient. Chinese farmers honed their growing skills to the point where they are generating average yields of 80 to 85 bushels an acre. Production estimates for 2010 are 158 to 172 million tonnes of corn.
That’s not enough to satisfy the demands of the country’s growing middle class, which is increasingly incorporating meat from corn-fed livestock into its diet.
“Once you’ve had a Big Mac you don’t go back,” said Dorr.
China began importing U.S. corn in the last half of 2009 and the grains council believes volumes could reach 15 million tonnes by 2015.
Dorr said it’s the first time the council is seeing tangible results after 30 years of market development work in the country. He can only imagine how different things would have been if it hadn’t been for Brown’s controversial book.
