Extreme weather may affect China's corn harvest but not enough to drive import growth

A survey shows that China's corn harvest may experience the worst decline since the beginning of this century due to the impact of severe weather on crops.

According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics of China, last year's corn harvest in China set a historical record of 289 million tons.

Five traders and analysts involved in the survey stated that China's corn production may decrease by 5 to 20 million tons year-on-year in 2024. In the worst case scenario, it means a decrease of about 7% in production, which will be the largest decline since a 17% decrease in production in 2000.

Although corn production may decrease, it may not be enough to boost prices or prompt China to accelerate imports, as domestic supply remains abundant. Since the end of September, the price of corn in China has slightly increased, but it is still close to the lowest level in four years.

Due to two consecutive years of abundant harvests, the domestic supply is saturated; The economic slowdown has weakened the demand for livestock and food processors.

So far this year, the pace of China's corn imports has slowed down, and no 2024/25 US corn has been ordered yet. Customs data shows that the total import volume of corn in China in the first eight months of this year decreased by nearly 16 percentage points compared to the same period last year.

The US Department of Agriculture lowered China's corn imports for 2024/25 to 19 million tons in its supply and demand report last Friday, a decrease of 2 million tons from the previous month, marking the second consecutive month of lowering China's corn import expectations.

Related information: Egypt overtakes China to become the largest buyer of Brazilian corn

According to data from Brazil's Ministry of Foreign Trade, from January to September 2024, Egypt replaced China as the top buyer of Brazilian corn, with an import volume of 3.021 million tons, an increase of 180% from the same period last year's 1.079 million tons. Egypt's corn imports accounted for 12.4% of Brazil's exports in the first nine months of this year, far higher than the 3.1% share in the same period last year.

From January to September this year, China imported only 1.941 million tons of Brazilian corn, a sharp decrease of nearly 6 million tons or 75.5% compared to 7.917 million tons in the same period of 2023. China's share in Brazilian corn exports has dropped to 7.9%, lower than 23.3% in the same period of 2023.

From January to September this year, the four major importers of Brazilian corn were Egypt, Vietnam (ranked second), South Korea (ranked third), and China (ranked fourth), with a total import volume of 9.638 million tons, accounting for 39.6% of Brazil's total exports.

In the first nine months of 2024, Brazil's corn exports reached 24.37 million tons, a decrease of 28.25% from 33.96 million tons in the same period of 2023. The total export amount was 4.984 billion US dollars, a year-on-year decrease of 41.8%.