A report issued by an attache of the US Department of Agriculture estimated China's 2013/14 corn imports at 4 million tonnes, below the USDA's last official forecast of 5 million. The report cited "biotech-related trade disruptions."
"Since November 2013, China has rejected over 900,000 (metric) tons of US corn and over 90,000 tons of US DDGS (dried distillers grains) imports due to detections of biotech corn variety MIR 162," said the attache's report, which was dated April 2 and released on Monday. "Although China has not yet granted import approval for MIR162, this trait is used in major corn producing countries such as the United States, Argentina, and Brazil, and is approved in most export markets," it said.
The attache projected China's corn production in marketing year 2014/15 at 218 million tonnes, up from 217.73 million in 2013/14. The report projected that corn imports would fall to 3 million tonnes in 2014/15 "due to high domestic corn stocks, incentives to purchase domestically, and uncertainty in import treatment of genetically modified corn."
