Corn Harvest in China This Year

Due to the continuous bad weather during the corn growing period this year, most of the famers complains that they have a bad harvesting on corn in 2010. However, not all of them meet this situation, some area still have very good harvesting.

Most of the farmers in China began to use huge corn harvester machine to increase their work efficiency, though some farmer still use manual way to harvest their corns.

 

China Sees Record Corn Harvest

According to USDA numbers, China harvested 143 million metric tons of corn in the 2006-'07 growing season. The USDA report, "World Corn Production, Consumption and Stocks," also shows that with increased harvests, China has seen a growing demand for corn in its nascent biofuel industry.

"They had a good crop last year, but they're using [their corn] more now [for ethanol]," said Kurt Markham, director of marketing services for the Minnesota Department of Agriculture.

China is home to only four ethanol plants that use corn, rice, wheat and cassava as feedstocks. According to Markham, corn "is going into a combination of food and [China’s] ethanol industry" Because of China’s food security policy however, an elimination of government subsidies for corn-based ethanol will shift the country’s focus to nongrain feedstocks, such as sweet potatoes and cassava. Cost will likely dictate what feedstocks are used. “In one [plant] they were running 60 percent wheat,” Markham said. “I asked them why, and they said wheat is cheaper than corn.”

Production numbers are hard to come by, but according to Markham, "[one of China’s ethanol plants produces] 500,000 metric tons (roughly equal to 157 MMgy) of alcohol and most of it goes to the fuel industry."

According to the USDA Agricultural Projections to 2016 report, growth in China's manufacturing sector helped stimulate higher prices in the crude oil markets. The report goes on to say that China used 3 million tons of corn for fuel production in 2005-'06. By 2016, that number is expected to increase to 9 million tons. China, already a small importer of corn, could become one of the largest.

Because of China's 1.3 billion populations, its fuel demands outpace those of any growing economy. Looking forward, China will continue at this pace, Markham said. "In 20 years, they're going to have more cars than we are," he said. "Their economy is growing at a rate of 15 percent a year [gross domestic product (GDP)]. Our economy grows at 3 or 4 percent GDP."