U.S. share of world exports continues to slide

You have to wonder who if anyone is paying attention to what is happening to the U.S. share of world corn and soybean exports. They have been in a long-term slide now for 30 years. In 1994/95 the U.S. had 82% of the world’s corn exports. It’s now 26%. Soybeans have dropped from 72% to 27%. Wheat has declined from 30% to 9%. Just since 2007 Brazil’s share of corn exports has risen from 8% to 25.9% and Ukraine has gone from 3% to 12%. Is there any way of regaining that market share? Very doubtful. It isn’t just one factor that has caused our exports to slide but there are two primary factors that have resulted in the shift. First of all, we have exported our technology. Fifteen years ago, advances in seed technology were primarily only available to U.S. farmers. Then one of the dominant seed companies sold to ChemChina and another one sold to Bayer, a German company. Suddenly, farmers around the world had the opportunity to purchase much better seed and chemicals than they had before. A