Eroding U.S. Soybean Competitiveness and Market Shares: What Is the Road Ahead?

Abstract

Although the United States is still the dominant country in the world soybean market, the U.S. market share of soybean world trade is declining. This study quantifies the decline that result from changes in ocean freight rates and Brazil’s infrastructure development. The results suggest that the U.S. world market share could further decline by 20 percentage points without improvements in the U.S. infrastructure from the farm to the port. A decline of 1 percent in the U.S. soybean market share is equivalent to $500 million lost in export sales, based on a world soybean trade volume of 100 million metric tons and today’s price of soybeans. Market shares for the United States, Argentina, and Brazil converge and reach equilibrium over the study period, despite the variability of the ocean freight rates.