China gets first corn shipment from South Africa, bolstering push to diversify away from US
- Delivery comes after Chinese buyers cancelled 562,800 tonnes of US corn orders in the last week of April
- Venturing as far as South Africa to source corn reflects the rising importance that Beijing is placing on acquiring critical grains
With China increasingly looking to friendly nations to help lower its grain reliance on the United States and war-torn Ukraine, the first shipload of South African feed corn was offloaded last week.
The noteworthy milestone was achieved by China’s largest food processor, manufacturer and trader – COFCO Group, which has for years been cultivating markets in South Africa, a fellow member of the BRICS group of emerging markets and also a participant in China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
The state-owned trader imported 53,000 metric tonnes (1.17 million pounds) of feed corn in the first batch, which will be supplied to domestic firms soon, according to Fan Zhenyu, who is in charge of the company’s international corn business.
In comments posted to COFCO’s website, Fan also said it would expand procurement sizes while exploring the use of regular bulk carriers to transport grain.
COFCO has already signed deals with 43 South African farms – with more than 70,000 hectares (173,000 acres) of farmland – to be long-term suppliers. The company also runs a large soybean-processing plant in the country.