US corn exports fell to a 25 year low

OA show ('918 '); [U.S corn exports fell to a 25 year low] as of January 25, U.S corn export contract volume (shipped volume plus undelivered sales volume) reached 1.012 billion bushels 107 million bushels below last year's level What's more, this export contract volume is only 47% of the 2.150 billion bushels predicted in the USDA supply and demand report in January In the same period last year, the export contract volume reached 58% of the final annual export volume On average, from 1976 to 2000, to the third week of January each year, corn export contracts accounted for an average of 63% of total annual exports Corn exports were relatively lower than the U.S Department of agriculture's January forecast because of a sharp decline in export contracts to Japan and South Korea By the third week of January, only 335 million bushels of corn had been exported to Japan This is 45 million bushels less than the same period last year The USDA's January world supply and demand report maintained its corn export forecast for Japan at 16 million tons That's just 120000 tons less than last year Japan's imports of coarse grain are expected to reach 19.19 million tons, a decrease of 230000 tons from last year If these predictions come true, Japan's corn imports will account for 79% of Japan's total coarse grain imports On average, the United States accounts for 73% of Japan's gross grain imports However, in the past 10 years, the U.S share in Japan's coarse grain market has been as high as 89% in 1994 and as low as 64% in 1993 On average, by that date, Japan had ordered 67% of its annual imports of U.S corn Japan should have ordered 405 million bushels so far, based on USDA's forecast for Japanese corn and coarse grain imports This is not in line with the actual figures Either Japan will eventually buy all of the corn the USDA expects, or it won't If Japan no longer purchases corn from the United States, where will it get it? Japan's share of corn imports from Argentina is likely to increase Although Argentine corn production is expected to decrease by 1.7 million tons this year, Argentine corn exports to Brazil will decrease by about 1.5 million tons In addition, Japan may resume the purchase of corn from China, provided that China has enough corn for export, and China continues to maintain the original export subsidy policy Japan has not purchased corn from China for several years since it cancelled the corn contract in the mid-1990s Finally, Japan may purchase other grains as corn substitutes, such as sorghum, barley, and even feed wheat However, feed wheat is not included in the coarse grain data column In the past decade, the proportion of corn in the total coarse grain import reached 74% (1999) at the highest and 56% (1993) at the lowest As of January 25, the contract volume of corn export from the United States to South Korea only reached 59 million bushels, which was 40 million bushels less than that of the same period last year On average, by this time, South Korea has ordered 50% of its annual corn purchases from the United States If we apply this ratio to this year's South Korean procurement contract, the US corn imported by South Korea is predicted to be 118 million bushels, 5 million bushels less than last year Although there are several U.S corn export markets showing an increasing trend, for example, Egypt and Mexico increased by 2 million bushels respectively, there is no evidence that the increase in other markets can make up for the decrease in exports to Japan and South Korea As a result, the U.S Department of agriculture will cut its corn export forecast again in a new agricultural supply and demand report released on Thursday If we exclude the unexpected surge in exports, it looks like us corn exports will only reach 2 billion bushels, or 150 million bushels less than the latest forecast, only 65 million bushels higher than last year's level China feed industry information network Suk (author:)