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China’s local corn purchases ramp up in December

  • Mercados: Agriculture
  • 09/01/23

Farmers in the main cropping regions of northeast China and the North China Plain (NCP) accelerated crop sales last month, with traded volumes exceeding previous year's level, but selling pace fell on the year.

Corn volumes purchased by grain processors and trading firms in the country's main producing areas reached 52.36mn t by 30 December, having advanced by 24.2mn t in the whole month. This was above the 50.11mn t traded over the same period in 2021, holding at the second-highest volume in the past five years, only lower than 2020's 58.91mn t, data from the country's National Food and Strategic Reserves Administration show.

China's farmers accelerated corn sales in the first half of last month, as the country's logistics recovered after the removal of Covid-19-related restrictions. This resulted in prices falling, which prompted farmers to hold off on selling in the market in mid-to-late December.

Sales and deliveries in NCP's Shandong province dropped considerably, with only some 900 trucks of grain loaded at processors' plants on 9 January. This compared with over 2,000 truckloads that corn users received last month, according to market participants. Sold volumes in Shandong consequently reached 3.9mn t in the week ending 5 January, down by 10,000t on the year.

Trading firms and grain processors in NCP's Henan province secured a combined 2.87mn t of corn from farmers by 5 January, up by 355,000t, or some 14pc from a year earlier. But in northeast China's Liaoning region — where the harvest finished late in the past autumn — only 5.91mn t of corn has been traded, lower by 12pc on the year, according to provincial authorities.

Despite higher purchased volumes, farmers' overall selling pace remained slow, about 5 percentage points behind the previous year in northeast China and 2 percentage points lower in NCP. This was because of China's bumper output in the 2022-23 marketing year, resulting in farmers' current ample stocks.

A continued lack of farmer activity could persist in the next couple weeks, as the Chinese lunar new year holiday will start late next week.


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