International Trade

World trade in sorghum is strongly linked to demand for livestock products, dominated by feed requirements and prices in Group II countries. Only 6 percent of world sorghum trade (about 500,000 tons per year) is for use as food. This is mainly imported by countries in Africa. Since trade is primarily for animal feed, volumes are very sensitive to sorghum/maize price differentials and can fluctuate considerably.

The world market for sorghum currently represents slightly more than 3 percent of global cereals trade. Although most sorghum continues to be consumed in the countries where it is produced, export volumes have risen from 3 million tons in the early 1960s to over 12 million tons (about 20 percent of total output) by the early 1980s (Tables 6 and 7). Most of the expansion took place in the 1960s and the first half of the 1970s, when world trade in sorghum tripled within a period of roughly 15 years, in line with the rise in imports of other coarse grains. Another sharp expansion occurred in the early 1980s, when the former USSR, as a result of the United States' export embargo, started to purchase large quantities of sorghum on the international market. These purchases also narrowed the sorghum/maize export price differential compared with the 1950s and 1960s.

World trade peaked at over 13 million tons in 1985, then fell sharply and remained at around 10 million tons until the early 1990s. It dropped further to about 8 million tons in 1994. This decline was due to a number of factors, including:

· a sharp cutback of production in the United States;

· the narrowed export price gap between maize and sorghum during the 1990s (Fig. 7), which made sorghum less competitive as a feed ingredient;

· the lifting of earlier restrictions or bans on maize imports applied by a number of countries, including Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela.

Table 6. World sorghum imports¹.

		1979-81 ('000 tons)	1984-86 ('000 tons)	1989-91 ('000 tons)	1992-94 ('000 tons)
Developing countries		3801.6	4351.8	4901.8	4754.3
Africa		152.4	482.5	305.2	423.7
Northern Africa		0.1	148.3	202.3	196.6
	Sudan	0.02	140.1	92.3	191.8
	Others	0.1	8.2	110.0	4.9
Western Africa		115.8	198.6	87.1	51.6
	Burkina Faso	15.2	13.7	15.8	6.4
	Mali	16.7	2.0	13.2	9.2
	Niger	18.6	49.7	17.6	19.4
	Senegal	23.3	60.0	20.2	9.0
	Others	42.0	73.2	20.3	7.6
Central Africa		2.9	17.0	3.9	6.1
Eastern Africa		12.0	57.6	11.8	147.9
	Ethiopia	4.1	29.0	6.8	62.0
	Kenya	0.1	0.0	1.0	16.8
	Somalia	3.7	12.5	3.8	19.0
	Zimbabwe	0.0	3.2	0.0	17.1
	Others	4.2	12.9	0.2	33.0
Southern Africa		21.6	61.0	0.1	21.5
	Botswana	13.9	60.0	0.1	21.5
	Others	7.6	1.0	0.0	0.0
Asia		847.7	1158.2	654.0	238.9
	China	591.0	657.2	82.4	104.0
	Korea, Republic of	72.5	302.9	238.2	82.5
	Turkey	0.0	0.0	55.4	0.0
	Others	184.3	198.1	278.0	49.4
Latin America		2793.6	2703.9	3330.2	4084.5
	Caribbean	4.0	0.0	65.4	3.6
Central America		2111.1	1930.5	2914.0	3990.4
	Mexico	2106.9	1922.7	2912.1	3982.2
	Others	4.3	7.8	1.9	8.2
South America		678.4	773.5	350.8	90.4
	Chile	13.7	6.4	2.2	33.3
	Colombia	64.7	68.0	0.7	21.5
	Ecuador	0.0	10.3	28.0	10.4
	Venezuela	588.6	684.5	315.8	4.5
	Others	11.4	4.3	4.1	20.8
Oceania		7.9	7.1	12.4	7.3
Developed countries		7892.8	6942.3	5234.5	3796.7
	Israel	452.8	500.1	302.3	146.3
	Japan	4291.3	4749.0	3843.9	2980.3
	South Africa	2.0	9.4	0.4	85.4
	EC3	1014.2	520.8	617.6	552.9
	CIS4	1820.2	1160.3	387.7	2.4
	Others	312.2	2.6	82.6	29.4
World		11694.4	11294.0	9536.3	8551.1

1. Each figure is a 3-year average for the respective period, e.g., 1979-81.
2. Shown as zero for imports less than 50 tons.
3. Including intra-trade among member countries.
4. Until 1991, area of the former USSR.
Source: FAO

Table 7. World sorghum exports¹

		1979-81 ('000 tons)	1984-86 ('000 tons)	1989-91 ('000 tons)	1992-94 ('000 tons)
Main exporters		11328.9	10856.7	8764.3	7993.5
	Argentina	3461.3	3144.7	926.5	842.1
	Australia	519.8	1200.0	261.2	188.8
	China	3.7	439.9	515.8	357.9
	United States	7344.0	6072.1	7060.8	6604.7
Others		1011.4	591.6	478.4	739.4
Africa		477.9	67.8	164.1	339.2
	South Africa	208.5	33.7	11.0	1.4
	Sudan	246.2	18.5	136.0	278.7
	Others	23.2	15.6	17.1	59.1
Asia		222.2	312.3	57.1	81.9
	Thailand	189.4	267.8	55.4	9.2
	Others	32.8	44.5	1.8	72.7
Latin America and the Caribbean		54.1	45.5	17.2	38.5
Europe		266.3	165.9	239.9	279.7
EC2		251.2	159.5	230.0	272.3
Hungary		7.1	6.4	9.6	7.4
Developing countries		4001.6	3976.4	1669.6	1658.1
Developed countries		8338.7	7471.8	7573.1	7074.9
World		12340.2	11448.3	9242.7	8732.9

1. Each figure is a 3-year average for the respective period, e.g., 1979-81.
2. Including intra-trade among member countries.
Source: FAO

Figure 7. Average annual (July-June) export prices for sorghum and maize at US Gulf ports (Sorghum = US Milo no. 2, yellow; maize = US no. 2, yellow.).

Source: FAO

Imports are concentrated in a few countries - Japan and Mexico alone account for about 80 percent of international imports (Table 6). Another significant importer is the European Community (EC), which, following a long-standing agreement based on the accession of Spain to the EC, is committed to import at least 300,000 tons of sorghum every year³. Total sorghum imports worldwide have been falling during the 1980s and early 1990s.

[³. This arrangement later became part of the Uruguay Round Agreement.]

One important trend is that sorghum imports by developed countries have fallen sharply, while those by developing countries have increased considerably in response to growth in livestock production. As a result, the share of developing countries in world sorghum imports has increased substantially, from 3-4 percent in the early 1960s to about 55 percent currently.

The major exporters are Argentina, Australia, China and the United States, which together ship more than 90 percent of the global export volume (Table 7). The United States alone supplies about three-quarters of all exports. Sorghum production and exports from Argentina expanded sharply between the early 1960s and early 1980s. During this period the harvested area rose from 0.8 million to 1.9 million hectares. However, exports fell markedly following a drop in demand during the second half of the 1980s. Australia entered the export market at the beginning of the 1970s, when it started to replace some of its wheat area with sorghum. China became an important exporter by the mid 1980s, but its share in the world market declined recently following a sharp rise in domestic demand for sorghum as animal feed.

The contributions of all the remaining suppliers to world exports are limited. Thailand emerged as a small but regular exporter by the mid 1960s, but rising demand from the domestic livestock industry has reduced exports since the late 1980s. Sudan is a traditional supplier with great potential, but is affected by large year-to-year fluctuations in export availability because of periodic drought.

In the Sahel, good harvests in recent years combined with relatively inelastic domestic demand have led to the emergence of exportable surpluses in a number of countries including Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger. However, strong competition on international grain markets and high assembly and transportation costs make it difficult for these countries to export.

Developing countries in general, apart from the already established traditional feed grain exporters such as Argentina and China, face a number of problems in exporting sorghum. The volume they have for sale is usually small and not available regularly, and the quality is variable. Moreover, a combination of low yields, high costs of inputs and inland transport and, in some instances, overvalued currencies makes their exports uncompetitive in the highly competitive international market.

The volume of trade between developing countries is limited and often restricted to cross-border and/or triangular food aid transactions. However, official statistics underestimate trade volumes in some regions. Intra-regional trade in Western Africa, for example, is believed to be considerably larger than officially recorded. A substantial portion of the trade between the Sahelian countries, and between some of them and their coastal neighbours, is unrecorded. Similarly, much of the trade between Sudan and its neighbours is unrecorded. This substantial, unofficial trade is caused chiefly by differences in policies (e.g., support prices, foreign exchange rates and government restrictions on trade) between the trading partners.