The coronavirus outbreak in China has not only caused health concerns worldwide, but it’s resulted in China putting much of its economy on hold and that is having negative effects in a variety of business sectors around the globe. Agricultural commodity markets are no exception. Bart Fischer is the co-director of the Agricultural and Food Policy Center at Texas A&M.
“In this phase one agreement with China they’ve, that the president just signed, they’ve agreed to purchase eighty billion dollars’ worth of agricultural products over the next two years. Roughly the five years leading up to the start of the trade war we were exporting about twenty billion a year. Now we’re looking a forty, doubling what we send to China. But that’s a two year agreement. What comes after that? Also still unknown. I think it’s an extraordinarily positive movement right now.”
Lee Denena farms and ranches in Robertson County.
“When phase one of the China deal was signed it didn’t mean that the very next day commodities were going to go through the roof because China was going to be buying. It simply meant that that laid out a plan that China was going to try and adhere to, to show good faith in our future trading. Nobody so this coronavirus coming.”
Since China plays such a large factor in the world economy, especially as it pertains to agricultural commodities, any disruption in the supply chain is felt worldwide.
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