Chad Hart, professor, spoke on international demand for farm commodities in 2022 at a lunch in Welton, Iowa, hosted by Maquoketa State Bank and First Central State Bank.
"The beginning of 2022 has been great for farmers," Hart said. "However, the second part of the year features a less-than-optimistic forecast, based on several factors, both regionally and internationally."
"Drought conditions, especially in the upper plains in the Dakotas, are generating some concern about next year," he noted.
It’s not just weather that is creating some concern from Hart. The China trade pact does not force China to purchase soybeans and corn from the United States, and China has shifted to new sources.
Read the Maquoqueta Sentinel-Press story.
Hart was also interviewed by Beau Bowman, KCCI, about the impact of the Russia-Ukraine conflict on fertilizer prices on Feb. 7.
Hart also did an interview for the Iowa Farmer Today story, "Analysts get a feel for Biden’s approach to trade."
Most trade agreements are 1,500 pages of intricate detail, explains Chad Hart, an Extension ag economist at Iowa State University. This agreement was less than 100 pages.
“There’s nothing binding here, that’s the weakness of the deal,” Hart says. “It was unique in its structure and brevity. … Think of Phase I like a balloon that was inflated over the past two years, but nobody tied a knot in the balloon. … This deal was aspirational.”
That doesn’t make it wrong, Hart says. But it means there are few guarantees that China will continue to buy large quantities of U.S. agricultural products. Now, he says, the Biden administration needs to decide on an approach for the future.
This story also covered by
The Pantagraph, Feb. 12