Corn is clearly on top of China's agricultural commodity shopping list at present, reflected in the unprecedented pace of new crop purchases out of the United States for this time of the year.
There were no US sales to China reported last Friday, but it has been quite the ritual during the past two weeks - with "flash sales" announced on nine of the previous 10 working days.
Bookings of US origin corn last week alone totaled 5.644 million tonnes for the 2021-22 marketing year, which starts on September 1.
This included the third-biggest ever one-day sale to China of 1.7 million tonnes, which the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced last Monday.
This was followed by announcements of 1.36 million tonnes, 1.36 million tonnes and 1.244 million tonnes on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, respectively.
The China corn story is not new.
The USDA penciled-in the Middle Kingdom for 26 million tonnes of imports in the 2020-21 and 2021-22 marketing years.
Last week's activity pushes China's new crop US corn purchases past 12.1 million tonnes since its "splurge" started earlier this month.
That equates to more than 19 per cent of the USDA's projected US export program for the 2021-22 marketing year - and 46.5 per cent of China's import estimate.
In 2020, it took until mid-August for the US to sell 12 million tonnes in total. That was a record pace at the time.
By the official start of the 2020-21 marketing year on September 1 this year, US corn sales to China were 8.2 million tonnes. The biggest volume month was July 2020.
If the current purchasing pace is maintained, it won't take long for the market to aim quite a bit higher - especially when considering that China's new crop corn purchases out of the Ukraine are already as high as six to seven million tonnes.
It seems China wants to get as much coverage as possible, especially with Brazil's crop getting smaller and the US farmer chasing an ambitious yield goal of 179.5 bushels per acre - with the unknown risks of an entire growing season ahead of them.
As China continues to step-up to the plate for new crop, it has given no indication that the remaining old crop purchases will not be shipped.
The strength in the December corn futures contract, and the extremely low cancellations to date, support this theory.
As of May 13, old crop US corn sales to China were 22.9 million tonnes, and there was still just over 10 million tonnes - or 44 per cent of the program - to be shipped ahead of the new crop export campaign.
US export inspections for the current marketing year are almost 80 per cent ahead of levels at the same time last year.
According to customs data, China imported 8.58 million tonnes of corn in the first four months of the calendar year.
This is an increase of 301 per cent compared to the same period in 2020, and means the nation has already exceeded its tariff rate quota (TRQ) for this year.
Corn imports from all origins in April totaled 1.85 million tonnes, and 1.3 million tonnes came from the US.
This was the second-highest monthly discharge on record - up from 1.08 million tonnes in March - and not far behind the record of 1.45 million tonnes set in January 2021.
On the other hand, imports from Ukraine were the lowest since November 2020 at 536,820 tonnes.
This month's World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) report pegged Chinese corn production for the 2021-22 season at 268 million tonnes.
This would be a 2.8 per cent increase from the 260.67 million tonnes that was reportedly produced in the current season.
The growth is primarily due to a higher planted area, which was driven by significantly higher prices and government policy aimed at reducing the nation's corn import program.
China's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs has reportedly prioritised the planting of grain on all unsown land - and set a goal of an additional 667,000 hectares sown to corn in key growing areas.
But the potential corn production gains will be limited by competing government policies that encourage soybean production.
There is also a fear that any new land bought into the grain production rotation will be poor quality and low yielding.
On the demand front, the WASDE report forecast 2021-22 Chinese corn demand at 294 million tonnes.
This is up five million tonnes - or 1.7 per cent - from 289 million tonnes in the current season.
The increase is driven entirely by a five million tonnes - or 2.4 per cent - increase in demand from the domestic stockfeed sector of 211 million tonnes.
The high domestic corn prices relative to grain alternatives has reportedly led to a dramatic reformulation in Chinese stockfeed rations.
The corn inclusion rate in swine mixes has dropped from 40 to 30 per cent.
It has also fallen in poultry blends in recent months from 65 to 55 per cent.
Growth in stockfeed consumption is forecast to continue, but the corn inclusion rate will depend more heavily on relative domestic prices than it has historically.
China's aggressive purchases of new crop corn not only highlight its growing need for corn, but maybe also signal its belief that the Brazilian crop will be much smaller than USDA is forecasting.
The apparent implication of China's old and new crop bookings is that the WASDE report is alarmingly low on its estimates of Chinese corn imports for both old crop and new crop - and, therefore, too low for US exports in both marketing periods.