|
N.W. Illinois | A quick search online and you can easily find it yourself. Without argument the Nixon-Ford embargo was the impetus to the development of South America's soybean growth. Nixon's embargo showed the world that the U.S. was not a reliable supplier of commodities to Japan and many other countries that were depending on the U.S.. Money poured into South America from Japan. Nixon-Ford's soybean embargo of 1973 and the effect it had on U.S. import customers, particularly Japan.
As an island nation with limited ability to expand agricultural production, Japan has to depend on imports to
feed its populace. The embargo shook Japan’s confidence in the U.S.’s reliability as a supplier of soybeans
and began to seek out alternate sources so as to not be
dependent upon a single supplier. In 1980, the governments of Japan and Brazil put in place the Japanese Brazilian Cooperation Program for the Development of
the Cerrados. This program lasted for 21 years, during
which time the Japanese financed the expansion of farming operations into the cerrados while Brazil was expected to finance improvements in roads and other infrastructure. Japan also helped finance research in the
development of appropriate soybean varieties and pest
management systems.
Here's a very good synopsis of Nixon's embargo https://farmdocdaily.illinois.edu/2019/05/a-brief-review-of-the-cons...
"(2)The Soybean Embargo
Looking back on 1973 from the vantage point of 1994, former Secretary of Agriculture Edward R. Madigan wrote that it was “hard to believe that the Peruvian anchovy harvest and the Watergate affair could impact on international trade negotiations occurring twenty years later, but those events did have a major effect on trade relations between the United States and the European Community” in the 1980s and into the early 1990s (Madigan 1994). An El Nino event off the coast of Peru harmed the anchovy harvest—an important source of protein for animal feed—contributing to a soybean price spike at a time when the Nixon Administration was trying to control inflation, while battling Congressional investigations (Coppess 2018; Akihiko 2017; Madigan 1994). President Nixon implemented an embargo on soybean (and cottonseed) exports in June 1973. The embargo was short-lived but had far-reaching impacts; the Administration ended the embargo and reinstated contracts by October 1, 1973, when it became clear that the soybean crop was larger than expected.
At the time of the temporary embargo, U.S. farmers produced approximately 70% of the total world supply of soybeans. Japan was the largest importer of U.S. farm products, relying on imports for 97% of its soybean needs and U.S. farmers for 90%; the Administration added insult to injury by cancelling soybean contracts and acting without prior consultation with Japan (Akihiko 2017; Marlin-Bennett et al., 1992; Destler, 1976). The embargo raised questions about the U.S. as a reliable supplier of staple commodities. In particular, Japan responded to its over-reliance on the U.S. by introducing the concept of food security and initiating policies to address it. Maybe the most far-reaching of these actions began in 1974 when the Japan International Cooperation Agency was formed and began a large-scale investment in the development of the Cerrado region in Brazil for soybean production; underway from 1979 to 2011 it helped push Brazil into a leading export role in the world soybean market (Akihiko 2017). Also in response, the European Community—another major customer of U.S. soybean exports—began dishing out large subsidies to increase production of oilseed crops in Europe (Madigan 1994). Further illustrating the long-run impacts, Figure 5 charts the exports of soybeans from the U.S. and Brazil in the years following the 1973 embargo based on USDA Foreign Agricultural Service data." | |
|
2025 Farm Bill and Beyond - Crop Insurance - the no risk preference Bye-bye?
