Thursday, October 13th 2016
China is moving to modernize its agriculture industry, but USDA officials say any changes will take years to impact the global economy. It was widely reported last week that the Agricultural Bank of China invested the equivalent of $450 billion dollars to modernize China’s ag industry. Rob Johansson is the USDA’s Chief Economist. He says any changes to China’s methods of production will take years to take effect. Johansson told Brownfield as productivity in Chinese Ag increases it could impact what crops are grown commercially. “I would expect that they will specialize in commodities their competitive advantage falls in. Which may be more cotton production perhaps, maybe shifting away from much row crop production and moving more into specialty crop production in some cases,” says Johansson. Johansson says that could impact global markets but the rest of the world will also be evolving along with China to meet world food demands.