WELLS — When Faribault County soybean farmer Jeff Ignaszewski considers the importance of China, he is quick to refer to this statistic: Every third row of Minnesota soybeans is exported to China.
“They’re a buyer of U.S. soybeans and Minnesota is a very high export state,” he said. “We just need to have an open ear for them because we’re shipping them soybeans. We need to have answers for them if they have questions. That’s the important thing. We need to have an open mind to see what they want going forward or if they’re happy with the way things are.”
Ignaszewski is hosting a Chinese commodity team Thursday afternoon at his Wells soybean farm. With 27 years of experience, he farms 1,200 acres between farms in Freeborn and Faribault counties. Ignaszewski sells his soybeans to CHS in Fairmont.
Kim Nill, director of market development with the Minnesota Soybean Research & Promotion Council, said the visit is an important one. The council organized the visit.
“With China’s purchases of U.S.-origin soybeans increasingly being for their proven, better long-term storage than South America-origin soybeans, Jeff’s strong focus on producing very high-quality soybeans on his farm will dovetail well with China soybean buyers’ focus,” Nill stated in a news release about the Thursday visit.
The 10 visiting Chinese soybean buyers will even get into the fields at Ignaszewski’s farm.
“We’ll go out and do a look in the field,” he said. “We need to keep good trade relations with China. It’s very important. They can come and look at the beans and get a hands-on of what the beans would be that we would export to China.”
He said farmers need to communicate and make sure “we’re on the same page as far as trading goes and just promoting a safe and healthy commodity for them to trade.”
The Chinese visitors are eager to see firsthand the equipment soybean farmers are using, as well as the soil types and logistics related to traveling with the soybeans, Ignaszewski said.
He’s most interested in hearing from his Chinese visitors about what they’d like to see the farming community do, as well as how communication could be improved.
“It’s very important for our soybean market in the U.S.,” Ignaszewski said. “China is huge and it’s very important to keep on good terms with them.”
With China being the largest overseas buyers of U.S. soybeans, Nill said “we work very hard to have good relations with them. It’s the Chinese trade team’s attempt to see how this year’s soybean crop is doing, which might guide their purchasing of U.S. soybeans in coming months.”
Ignaszewski has hosted international visitors before and does a good job, Nill said.
“They prize clean soybeans and Jeff does a great job of explaining all the steps he takes to make sure his soybeans are clean.”