China's corn harvest is to come in well short of official forecasts, sapped by a failure substantially to lift yields, leaving the country on track for record imports.
The US Grains Council, following a tour of Chinese crops last month and talks with in-country officials and analysts, pegged the harvest at 166.6m tonnes.
The estimate is short of a Chinese official estimate of 182m tonnes, and the US Department of Agriculture's 178.0m tonnes.
Furthermore, the forecast leaves China short, for the seventh time in the last eight seasons, of covering consumption from its own harvest. Use was estimated at 170.1m tonnes.
The shortfall left China requiring corn imports of 5m-10m tonnes, beating the record of 4.29m tonnes set 17 years ago, on USDA numbers.
The forecast assumed the country wishes to prevent stocks dwindling to some 24m tonnes, with historic metrics suggesting it would be more comfortable with stocks of 35m-40m tonnes.
China may already be importing more corn than generally perceived, being the destination for a "good share" of the US corn booked by American officials as going to unknown destinations, Thomas Dorr, the US Grains Council chief executive said.
Yield puzzle
USGC officials termed the Chinese crop "bumper" despite it looking on track to fall short of other forecasts.
"By anyone's vernacular, they are harvesting a record crop," Mr Dorr said.
However, with the yield forecast at 86 bushels per acre, a little over half US levels, the council expressed surprise at the lack of progress in lifting productivity, a factor potentially down the use of poorer-quality seed.
"These yields do not seem to be going up the way they might be expected to," Mike Callahan, the council's senior director of international operations, said.
Data doubts
The council said its estimates were based on more than 300 crop samples from China seven major growing areas and conversations with provincial officials, which lent the study greater credibility than if relying on Beijing data.
Forming an estimate for planted area, pegged at 76.35m acres, had been particularly difficult.
The doubts over Chinese official statistics tap into a long-running theme also explored on Tuesday by Credit Suisse analysts, in a note which flagged the difference between USDA estimates for China's corn stocks, of more than 50m tonnes, compared with those of private analysts.
Shanghai-based JC Intelligence pegs the figure at half those levels.
"Given how Dalian [exchange] front-month futures have moved, we think that the latter may be more accurate in representing actual stocks," Credit Suisse said.
The bank too forecast rising Chinese buy-ins, saying "the continued growth of intensive [livestock] farming and rising use of corn-based sweeteners will outstrip growth in domestic [corn] production and hence push Chinese domestic stocks lower to the point where China will be forced to import".
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