Lies. (Blank Lies). And Statistics.

USDA data shows 2021 exports of U.S. farm and food products totaled $177 billion, 18 percent higher than 2020 and nearly 15 percent higher than the previous record set in 2014.

But is it because we exported more? Or because what we exported was worth more? If you haven’t noticed, inflation has changed price tags just a little bit over the past several months. Veronica Nigh is the American Farm Bureau’s Senior Economist.

“Of course, increased commodity prices and rising global inflation contributed to that. About two-thirds of that increase can be attributed to increases in price, and then about a third attributed to increases in quantity exported. So, certainly a lot of price action but additional product being shipped as well.”

Problems at the Detroit port heading into Canada may wild it up a bit more in 2022 as well as a failure by China to reach their full obligation under the Phase One Agreement…

“The Phase One Agreement ended at the end of 2021. We saw them miss their overall import level by about $13 billion over the 2020-2021 range. So, while we had record exports to that country, they could have been higher, and we see that reflected in the market share data.”

According to Nigh, U.S. market share has yet to recover from the trade dispute that we've had with the Chinese.