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China soybean demand rebounds, but U.S. soy industry eyes broader market base

There’s a lot of attention on U.S. soybean exports to China as leaders from both countries meet later this week.

Soy Transportation Coalition executive director Mike Steenhoek says despite a rebound in Chinese imports this year, the U.S. must continue to diversify markets.

“The way we often like to discuss it at the Soy Transportation Coalition is if China is a homerun market just given the size and the scale of the consumer base there, if China is a homerun market what are the base hit markets? And you can win baseball games via base hits.”

He tells Brownfield the U.S. soy industry is also diversifying the supply chain by expanding its transportation network beyond the Mississippi Gulf and Pacific Northwest.

“So what you’ve continued to see from the Soy Transportation Coalition is promoting initiatives to increase export capacity on the Atlantic Coast, the Great Lakes, the Texas Gulf.”

Steenhoek says that allows the supply chain to be more resilient when there are significant market changes like when China stopped purchasing soybeans from the U.S. last year.