North Dakota Soybean Growers Anxiously Await Sales to China

Agricultural economist John Newton, right. (Photo by Jeff Beach/North Dakota Monitor)

(North Dakota Monitor) – North Dakota soybean growers rely heavily on exports to China, but with harvest on the horizon, those exports are nowhere in sight.

“China hasn’t made a single purchase commitment,” John Newton, a longtime ag economist and executive head of Terrain, a farm credit services company, said last week at the Big Iron farm show. “We need to start seeing those commitments come in right now. And I think that’s really what’s weighing on the farm economy.”

Newton said export commitments for the crop of soybeans that is about to be harvested are at the lowest point since 2018-19, which is keeping prices low.

Newton, who was previously the Republican chief economist for the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, said he thinks the Trump administration tariff policies have worked to the extent that there have been deals with the European Union, Canada, Mexico and other countries. “But where we haven’t seen anything yet, is with China, and where that hits hard is with soybeans,” Newton said.