Brazil-China sorghum trade

In the news this week has been a meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Brazilian counterpart President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on the sidelines of the annual G20 economic summit, which was held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

The meeting produced nearly 40 agreements in a number of different sectors, several related to agriculture. Of those pertaining to ag, one that raised a few eyebrows was an agreement to allow Brazilian exporters to ship sorghum to Chinese markets.

Sorghum is a field crop that is a distant cousin to corn and is high in protein. In China, the crop is used primarily for animal feed but is also used to make the popular alcoholic beverage Baijiu, meaning the country imports large quantities of the crop annually.

Imports from all...