DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Chinese officials agreed at a ceremony in Des Moines to buy 13.18 million metric tons of U.S. soybeans.
The officials signed 24 contracts Thursday that The Des Moines Register reports are valued at about $5.3 billion.
Ray Gaesser, an Iowa farmer and chairman of the American Soybean Association, says the amount China will import is roughly equal to all the soybeans grown in Iowa, expected to be the second-largest soybean producer this year behind Illinois.
China uses most of the soybeans it imports to feed livestock and poultry.
Don Roose, the president of U.S. Commodities, a commodities broker in West Des Moines, says the giant contract is good news for farmers, but he didn’t think it would change soybean prices.
