Chinese Corn Production May Be on Its Way Back Up Again

By The Western Producer|7 January 2022

China’s corn production seems to be back on track after a five-year hiatus, but one analyst isn’t expecting a return to bloated government stockpiles of the crop, writes Sean Pratt at The Western Producer.

The country produced 273 million tonnes of corn in 2021, according to recently released official Chinese government estimates. That is a 12% increase over the previous year’s production and a return to the steep path of growth that existed prior to 2015, according to the Dim Sums blog.

Chinese farmers produced a massive crop in 2015, prompting the country’s agriculture ministry to implement a “supply side structural adjustment” initiative aimed at curbing corn production in favor of other crops such as beans, minor grains, and fodder crops.

China had a glut of corn and wanted to reduce plantings in environmentally sensitive areas. “That plan was conveniently forgotten after several years of corn auctions emptied out warehouses and corn prices shot up in 2020,” according to the blog.

China has become a huge importer of the crop, something exporting nations had been counting on for many, many years before it finally occurred.