By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
An American agricultural leader says China can be a very profitable market for United States grains, but a difficult one to navigate.
Chair of the US Grain Council, Brent Boydston, says it would be difficult to overstate the importance of China as an agricultural market.
“We were there a few weeks ago as part of a combined cooperator group and seeing China first-hand, China is an incredibly important market to the United States and United States agriculture,” Boydston tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post.
Boydston acknowledges it can be a difficult market.
“In the broad scope, there can be challenges, but I was left with a sense after our meetings that there’s a willingness to work with their agricultural trade partners to help try and get some of those challenges out of the way,” Boydston says.
Boydston says during his time in China the delegation got a chance to speak with Ambassador Nick Burns who Boydston says has been a big advocate for United States agriculture in China.
“He made some comments that we can handle what we can handle and then there are those issues that are government-to-government,” according to Boydston. “So, we’re going to focus on what we can handle.”
Boydston says not only is the US Grain Council pushing corn and sorghum sales to China, it also is touting ethanol and distillers’ s dried grains. Boydston points out the Grain Council has had an office in China for 40 years.
“And we feel like we’re just now starting to see the fruits of that office. We’ve had several directors in China and we’re now starting to get into places that we haven’t been able to before and that’s because we have had to have those relationships develop over time,” Boydston says “China is a very, very long play, very slow play.”
Boydston says many believe agricultural trade between the US and China could help ease the political tension between the two countries. Boydston says the recent face-to-face meeting between President Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping in San Francisco should help ease tensions between the two countries.