Global food prices are rising, and Chinese farmers are snapping up feed grain around the world

Chinese feed processors, pig farmers and traders are reshaping the global grain market, rushing to the world to boost global food prices by 2021 as a lack of domestic supply pushes corn prices to record highs.
China's buying has made it by far the biggest grain buyer of the season, breaking previous purchase records and marking a marked change in China's previously largely self-sufficient state in the grain market.
analysts and traders say China's purchases and other major grain producers' own problems have helped drive up global corn, wheat and barley prices -- and are likely to spread the impact to the grain-dependent dairy and meat industries in the coming months.
"The big change in the grain market is that China is the world's largest importer of corn, and you didn't expect this day to come so fast," said Philippe Chalmin, an analyst at Cyclope.
main trigger for China's big buying of grain is the widening shortage of domestic corn, triggering an unprecedented wave of imports and substitutions;
U.S. corn, Russian wheat and French barley have risen 25-30 percent since May, while the U.N. global grain price index rose 17 percent from a year earlier to its highest level in more than five years.
corn and wheat futures are up 25 percent and 17.5 percent, respectively, in the past three months.
, corn prices and the yuan are at multi-year highs, so buyers are actively looking to import," said Darin Friedrichs, senior analyst at StoneX.
china's imports of barley, corn, sorghum and wheat rose 83.3 per cent year-on-year to 20.86 million tonnes in the first nine months of 2020, according to customs data, and more grain imports are expected.
"I'm already buying for alternative grains, including barley, sorghum and wheat, for The Year January-June," said the purchasing manager of a feed producer in southern China, who has sourced more than 200,000 tons of corn from the U.S. and Ukraine, and sorghum and barley from the U.S., Argentina and France.
china's grain purchases have accelerated since May, as the country consumes huge inventories and extreme weather has curbed corn production this year.
supply and strong demand in the feed sector have led to a 20 to 30 million tonnes shortfall in China's food supply this quarter.
killed hundreds of millions of pigs during the outbreak of swine fever.
but the industry has rebounded after two years of doldrums and the number of pigs has rebounded rapidly to become the world's No.
"There is a shortage of domestic (corn) and demand from the pig industry is expected to be higher, " says the manager of a large pig farm in northern China.
manager was not authorized to speak to the media and spoke on condition of anonymity.
"As long as we can buy it, we'll buy it as soon as we think it's appropriate."
" China's purchases of future crops have reached an all-time high.
buyers have ordered about 17m tonnes of corn for the 2020-21 sales year, which begins on September 1st, and are ready to buy more, making China the world's second-largest importer of corn, in line with Japan.
further increase in Chinese purchases, it could overtake Mexico, the biggest buyer.
expected to import about 15 million tons of barley and sorghum in the new sales year, two analysts said.
wheat imports are expected to reach a record high of 9m tonnes by 2020-21, according to a state-owned trader.
a chain reaction China's strong demand is shaking global markets.
on the demand side, key buyers such as Brazil's meat producers are already lying out of supply and inflation.
other key end users are also expected to feel the impact of higher grain prices in 2021.
on the supply side, weather conditions have caused tight supplies of corn in the United States, wheat in the Black Sea region and rice in Southeast Asia this year.
"We are very active in China's agricultural products business now, " Maruben 8002. T President Persimmon Jincheng said at a november 9 meeting of analysts.
China imported 3.724 million tons of sorghum from the U.S. in January-September 2020, accounting for 81% of all U.S. sorghum exports, 261 percent more than in all of 2019.
, China also bought the vast majority of barley exported by France - 1.08 million tons in January-September and 612,945 tons in 2019, according to Chinese customs data.
this year, barley and sorghum exports from Argentina, Ukraine and Canada have also surged, pushing up export prices for some major crops by as much as 50 per cent from a year ago.
"China has taken sensible steps to order grains and oilseeds months before prices rise," said Ole Houe, head of advisory services at brokerage IKON Commodities in Sydney.
expect to buy more U.S. corn.
"The best option is to buy a lot of American corn, and the second best option is to stock up on a lot of imported barley and sorghum," said the purchasing manager of the feed producer.
"As long as there is a price advantage, we will continue to buy feed grain, because the demand for corn is always there."
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