Improved yields grow China’s corn production

Improved yields and a slightly larger planted area will boost China’s corn production in 2024-25 even as government policies encourage increased soy planted area and reduced corn area, according to a report from the Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) of the US Department of Agriculture. In its Global Agricultural Information Network (GAIN) report, released on April 2, the FAS forecast China to harvest 296 million tonnes of corn in 2024-25, a 2.4% increase over the previous marketing year. At 44.3 million hectares, corn planted area will be slightly larger as farmers favor the grain over soybeans due to higher profits from planting corn, despite government subsidies favoring soybeans. Total corn consumption for the nation of 1.4 billion people is forecast at 318 million tonnes in 2024-25, up 13 million tonnes year-on-year. Corn continues to grow as a proportion of grain feed rations, even as total feed and residual use is forecast to drop slightly from 283 million tonnes in 2023-24 ...