Agriculture and Rural Live
(2012-05-28)
KANSAS CITY, MO
(NET Radio) -
Missouri soybeans are exported all over the world, and markets are only growing - and farmers like Ron Gibson make those connections to global partners.Gibson has spent his entire life growing soybeans in Norborne, Mo., about 60 miles east of Kansas City. He has farmed in Norborne, the self-proclaimed "World Capital of Soybeans," for a long, long time.
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| Eva Dou for Harvest Public Media Gibson holds a handful of soybean seeds that will be planted this year. Soybeans are Missouri's biggest export crop to China. |
At age 70, Gibson finally got to see where most of his crop ends up for the first time: on the other side of world, in China.
"We spent a couple days in Beijing and then went to the Hebei province, the sister state of Missouri, and they treated us very, very nice there," Gibson said.
Gibson was part of a Missouri trade mission to China last fall. He represented soybean farmers. It was an important role because soybeans are Missouri's main crop, and China is their biggest customer.
"It has made a world of difference," Gibson said. "The price wouldn't be near what it is if they weren't using all that they're using."
Historically speaking, China buying so much soy from the U.S is actually an interesting reversal. Soybeans are native to China and have been cultivated there for thousands of years. They weren't introduced to the West until much later, and even then, Gibson said, soybeans didn't take off.
"It started out as a legume, as a manure crop," Gibson said. "You planted it and plowed it under - that was years ago. But it turned out it was such a good livestock feed."
With the discovery of new uses for soybeans - like biodiesel - places like Norborne have been turning out ever more soy.
"You've got to find new demands because the yields are increasing and you don't want a glut on the market," Gibson said.
In almost every sector, Missouri businesses are looking to plug themselves in to the enormous Asian market. Tim Nowak, executive director of the World Trade Center Saint Louis, said 80 to 85 percent of Missouri's exporters are small- to medium-sized companies.
"It's not just about multinational companies," Nowak said.
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| Eva Dou for Harvest Public Media Ron Gibson, 71, surveys one of his fields in Norborne, Mo., on April 15, 2012. Gibson represented Missouri soybean growers on a trade mission to China in October 2011. |
But not everyone's happy with what's being sold, according to Robert Scott, the director of trade research at the Washington D.C.-based Economic Policy Institute. Scott pointed out that Missouri's top exports continue to be commodities, such as crops and metals, while its main imports are finished products. He says this trade imbalance will hurt the state in the long run.
"We're pouring energy on the land and mining the soil for corn with a lot of heavy equipment," Scott said. "It doesn't create very many jobs. We're using those products to buy labor-intensive manufactured goods from China."
Gibson, though, sees the situation more positively. He said he came back from China with a new outlook.
"I expected everything to be backwards, but the big cities are just like ours," Gibson said. "They're huge."
Huge cities - filled with potential customers.
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