Corn and beef likely to gain as China’s appetite expands

Since China began opening up its economy to food imports a couple of decades ago, its agricultural purchases have been heavily weighted toward soybeans and pork products.

But that is likely to change as Chinese citizens demand more protein and a greater diversify of food, and there are growing signals that those changes could spur higher imports of both corn and beef, according to trade experts who briefed the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation China market study tour at re­­cent meetings in Beijing.

The growth of corn and beef imports won’t necessar­ily come at the...