U.S. soybean farmers got a reprieve at the end of a tough 2019 after the United States and China agreed on the text of a phase-one economic and trade agreement in mid-December.
"I think it's good news that both sides are talking and both sides have agreed to the deal," Grant Kimberley, director of market development at the Iowa Soybean Association, told Xinhua in a recent phone interview.
"I think everybody is optimistic and happy to hear that progress has been made," he said. "Let's hope that the positive news continues. It'll be good for both countries."
Grant's father, Rick Kimberley, who is president of Kimberley Farms Inc., also shared his comments via Chinese social media platform WeChat: "I am pretty excited to hear the good news. It's a win-win and it's beneficial to us as well as Chinese consumers. I hope we could keep going forward and work out other issues that might be difficult to solve."
The Kimberleys have been known by many in the United States and China since Chinese President Xi Jinping (then vice president) visited their family farm in Maxwell, Iowa, in 2012.
YEAR OF UNCERTAINTY
The year 2019 has been "challenging" for U.S. soybean farmers as they were hit hard by tariff impacts as well as historic wet weather in the Midwest, Grant said.
"Uncertainty has been the name of the game this year because of all the twists and turns, and (it is) almost like watching a movie of having the various plot points change in direction," he said.
The U.S. administration has since 2018 imposed several rounds of additional tariffs on Chinese imports, initiating a prolonged trade dispute between the world's two largest economies.
As countermeasures, China levied tariffs on a list of items imported from the United States, including some agricultural products such as dairy.
In the 2017 fiscal year, U.S. farmers and ranchers exported about 22 billion U.S. dollars' worth of agricultural products to China.
The agricultural exports to China will fall to just 6.5 billion dollars in the 2019 fiscal year, according to projections by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Prior to the tariff battle, "about one third of all the soybeans grown in the United States were destined for China," said Grant.
