When people talk about world corn production, the first image that comes to mind is the US corn belt. This makes perfect sense because the US is projected to produce 36% of the total world corn crop. However, many people might not realize how big of a producer China has become over the last several years. According to USDA, China is projected to produce an 8.74 billion bushel corn crop this year. This would represent 23% of the total world corn crop. The US and China combined will now represent 59% of total world corn production. This chart is a nice visual of the recent uptrend in Chinese yield and production (6.0MT per hectare equates to 96 bushels per acre.) To give you some perspective on US and Chinese production, the next biggest producer is Brazil at 2.9 billion bushels followed by the EU at 2.58 bil bu. China has been able to increase production through better technology (farming practices) along with better storage systems. Up until 2009, China had been a net corn exporter in the world market before the recent trend of being a net importer. China currently has ample corn stocks on hand and the crop in the field is doing very well. This has led some to believe that they may return as an exporter again. If true, this has the potential to curb demand for US corn next year. From a world perspective, USDA is projecting record corn usage next year. However, they are also projecting the second largest production estimate ever which is pushing total supplies to a new record.