Predicting China's Corn Acreage and Production in 2021/22 and 2022/23

China's corn imports exceeded its corn tariff rate quota of 7.2 million metric tons in 2020 and reached a record of 26 MMTs in the 2020/21 marketing year. While China's recent corn import surge was largely due to its feed demand to recover its hog inventory from the African Swine Fever outbreak, the prospect for China's corn imports is unclear. Figure 1 shows that China's corn futures price with maturity in November 2021 declined from around $10.80 per bushel in May to $9.70 per bushel in September 2021. The current level is still high relative to the historical norm. Over this period, China's hog futures price declined from the highest point of around $2 per pound to around $1 per pound. The hog futures price drop suggests that China's hog inventory recovery is likely making good progress, which will put upward pressure on China's corn imports in 2021/22 and 2022/23. The net impact will depend on China's domestic corn production, and to estimate this we need reasonable estimates of Chinese farmers' acreage and yield price supply elasticities.