China Makes Giant Purchase of Corn and Ethanol from the United States

Fifty-three and a half million bushels of corn at once — the biggest sale made by the United States to China! This raises the price of cereal internationally. And in a similar move, China purchased U.S. ethanol, and commits to buying volumes never before seen in a single year, in the first half of 2021.

If this is foreshadowing a decadelong trend that begins in 2021 in which sustainability and the environment are inexorable parts of the global agribusiness game, Brazil also has an extraordinary opportunity based on grains and the smart RenovaBio bioenergy program to carry out “the multiplication of grains.” There is added value in biodiesel and ethanol. Not to mention very interesting projects such as those in the Zona da Mata Mineira, where a macauba palm tree can be transformed into a biokerosene for aviation.

General Ed Hubbard, general counsel for the Renewable Fuels Association of the United States, told the AgWeb Farm Journal: “This would be a significant purchase. It would be something that would shake the industry up. The challenge, though, is that we have to wait and see whether or not it actually materializes.” China, Brazil’s biggest customer, has made a giant purchase of American ethanol and corn.

Is it to welcome the new Joe Biden administration? A “welcome, new president”? What makes us demand more and more from Brazilian authorities is what is already written on our flag: Order and Progress.

Let’s place the country’s agribusiness as the economic driving force behind gross domestic product growth, and science as the only solution for the COVID-19 pandemic. Less discussion and argument, Brazil. From now on, laws against illegal activity in the Amazon and commercial diplomacy for real.

José Luiz Tejon Megido obtained his master’s in Education, Art and History of Culture from Mackenzie Presbyterian University and a doctorate in Education from UDE Uruguay, and is a member of the Sustainable Agro Scientific Council.