Agribusiness in China and new regulations that have rattled U.S. exports of dried distiller’s grains with solubles will be among the hot topics today at the U.S. Grains Council’s 54th annual meeting at the Hilton Omaha.
Demand for corn in China is outpacing yield growth there, and prices for corn grown in China are trending up. But import restrictions have stymied U.S. producers’ chance to help sate demand in the most populous country in the world.
China’s import inspection authority earlier this month mandated that distiller’s grains entering the country be certified that they do not contain a genetic trait called MIR 162.
Exports of such grains — a byproduct of ethanol production used as a protein-rich livestock feed — grew from 1 million tons in 2006 to more than 8 million tons in 2013, according to the U.S. Grains Council. China accounts for 34 percent of U.S. exports, and the value of these grains sent to China in 2013 alone was $1.6 billion.
People are also reading…
No genetically modified crops are approved for commercial cultivation in China, and the approval process for importing genetically modified commodities can take two years or longer, according
to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Any China-bound shipments of such grains departing the U.S. after July 24 that fail to meet certifications will be rejected. The rules are especially problematic because a “suitable test simply does not exist,” U.S. Grains Council chairman Julius Schaaf wrote to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on Sunday.
Schaaf said the Chinese requirement is a “direct threat to ... the U.S. ethanol industry as a whole.”
In Nebraska, where the U.S.-China Business Council reported that $1.3 billion of the state’s $1.9 billion in China-bound exports in 2013 was related to crop production, negotiating agricultural trade barriers is critical.
Leave it to a Nebraskan, then, to help sort out the mess.
Darci Vetter, a Hamilton County native who grew up on an organic farm near Marquette, was confirmed July 9 by the U.S. Senate as U.S. Chief Agricultural Negotiator. She’s addressing a crowd today at the U.S. Grains Council’s meeting on key opportunities and challenges facing the U.S. agriculture sector.
As an ambassador of the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, Vetter was nominated in December by President Barack Obama to oversee international negotiations for the trade of agricultural products. U.S. agricultural exports hit a record high of $141 billion in 2013.
While Vetter understands the importance of China to U.S. trade, she said she and colleagues in Washington D.C. are working on “one of the most ambitious trade agendas in several decades,” which includes transoceanic negotiations both in Europe and Asia.
Despite the broad implications of global trade, however, Vetter said it’s also important to keep perspective of the things she learned growing up on the family farm in rural Nebraska.
“I understand how long it takes to get a crop from field to fork,” she said. “I think about that a lot when I’m trying to negotiate the best deal.”
Vetter graduated from Aurora High School before completing undergraduate studies at Drake University in Des Moines. She later earned a master’s degree in public administration from Princeton University.
Most recently, Vetter was deputy undersecretary for farm and foreign agricultural services at the USDA. She has also served as an adviser to the Senate Finance Committee and has held other roles in her current office.
Contact the writer: 402-444-1534, cole.epley@owh.com
