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Finding new and thriving domestic markets for U.S. corn and soybeans isn’t just critical to American agriculture, it’s needed for the future of the country itself.
That’s according to Mike Johanns, former U.S. agriculture secretary, Nebraska governor and U.S. senator.
As crop import juggernaut China increasingly focuses on food security and diversifies among global markets, and ag powerhouse Brazil looks to produce and export more farm products, the U.S. must find additional demand for its two biggest crops – corn and soybeans – and that means new markets for biofuels.
“We need to incentivize and build our presence in aviation fuel and maritime fuel in any way possible,” Johanns, chairman of agriculture at consulting firm alliant, said to Agri-Pulse in an interview. “We need to build markets within the United States for these products, because it's not just the soybean farmer and the corn farmer out there. It's those rural communities that raise up the men and women who go off to fight in places like Afghanistan and Iraq.”
Brazil, the world’s largest soybean producer and a major corn exporter, is facing near-term hurdles due to slumping commodity prices, high fertilizer costs, challenging credit conditions and the potential of El Niño-driven extreme weather, according to Purdue University. Yet the longer-term ag outlook for the South American nation doesn’t show any signs of slowing down. As a chief rival to the U.S., Brazil has some serious advantages, including younger producers on average.
Less than half of Brazilian farmers, or 47%, are over 55, while in the U.S. the share is 63%, according to the Boston Consulting Group. “This younger age profile suggests a stronger generational transition and a more inclined workforce toward modernization,” BCG said in a 2025 report.
A study last week from the National Corn Growers Association and ag data firm Kynetec shows U.S. farmers are paying more for seeds and pesticides than their counterparts in Brazil.
Soybean output in Brazil has jumped from around 75 million metric tons in 2011 to 180 MMT in 2026, while corn production has climbed from about 57 MMT to 138 MMT, according to Purdue. Early forecasts call for record Brazilian production of both corn and soybeans in 2027, exceeding estimates for a record output this year. The growth coincides with China ramping up purchases of Brazilian crops and increasing investment in ag shipping infrastructure in South America.
U.S. farmers are hopeful that recent U.S.-China agreements will continue to revive Chinese purchases of U.S. soybeans following a lull last year amid trade tensions between the two countries. Still, robust Brazilian supplies helped drive China’s soybean imports to their highest level ever in June, Reuters reported on Tuesday.
“Brazil has tremendous room to grow agriculture. They’re now a dominating force in soybeans. Twenty years ago, that was not the case,” Johanns said, adding that the country now seeks to be a dominating force in corn.
Mike Johanns (alliant photo)Johanns said he's been to Brazil twice in the last two years, meeting with agribusiness producers.
“They have a lot of runway to grow agriculture in Brazil, and they have every single intention of doing that. They're not done. They're not anywhere near done," he said. "It's not a question of if they'll do it, it’s a question of how quickly they'll do it, and it can happen fast there. The next five to 10 years could change the entire dynamic. We grow a lot of corn and soybeans, so what do we do about this?"
The Trump administration is garnering widespread praise from the farm and biofuel industries for setting the highest-ever federal mandates for blending renewable fuels into the national gasoline and diesel supplies, especially for biomass-based diesel, which had been languishing the last couple of years.
Congress last year revamped and enshrined into law a Biden-era biofuel production tax credit, known as 45Z, which replaced a flat, $1-a-gallon blending incentive with one that is valued based on how low a fuel’s greenhouse-gas footprint is throughout its entire production chain.
Farm and fuel groups are now pressing the Treasury Department to finalize 45Z rules. In Congress this week, crop and biofuel groups are pressing for various measures aimed at strengthening prospects for crop-based biofuels. Those include a bill to allow year-round, voluntary sales of higher ethanol blends, known as E15, named for the push for 15% and higher mixes versus the current standard of 10%.
E15 and development of new U.S. biofuel markets like marine and jet fuel are seen in the ag sector as crucial for the future of America’s top crops amid the rise of electric vehicles and fast-changing global agriculture trade flows. Major challenges remain, however, including opposition from fossil fuel interests and environmentalists.
“I appreciate there are people out there who disagree with me about renewable fuels, but it's an absolute imperative for the future security of the United States,” said Johanns, who led the USDA under former President George W. Bush, from 2005-07, and served as a Republican senator from Nebraska from 2009-15.
Brazil and E32
Meanwhile, the U.S. faces heightened global competition in biofuels as well. For example, China is rapidly working to develop a market for sustainable aviation fuel under its latest five-year plan. Brazil is working as well to become a global leader in lower-emitting jet and shipping fuels.
Just Tuesday, Brazil’s National Council for Energy Policy approved a measure to temporarily raise the mandatory blend of anhydrous ethanol in gasoline from 30% to 32%, or E32. The update, driven in part by Brazil’s goal of expanding its biofuel mix, should mean that the country will no longer need to import 900 million liters of gasoline per year, according to the firm BNamericas.
An estimate by the Sugarcane and Bioenergy Industry Association, known as Unica, indicates that boosting the blend should generate additional demand of around 1 billion liters of anhydrous ethanol per year in the country, an increase the group believes can be absorbed by existing production capacity for sugarcane and corn ethanol, BNAmericas said.
The move highlights the growing corn industry in Brazil, including greater production of corn-based ethanol.
Beyond higher mixes in gasoline, a major potential market for ethanol that some experts say could replace declining demand for motor fuel due to EVs, is sustainable aviation fuel, which can be made using a wide range of materials, including ethanol.
Roughly 40% of the U.S. corn crop each year is used to make ethanol, underscoring its importance to rural America.
“If we don't have strong rural America and rural communities, we will not have a strong country,” Johanns said.
Farm bill could be a subject in lame duck
An immediate issue for the rural U.S. is the fate of farm bill legislation making its way through Congress.
Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman John Boozman, R-Ark., said Tuesday that his committee will consider its proposed farm bill next week at the earliest, provided panel member Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who is now hospitalized, returns to the Senate.
A push by Democrats to delay an upcoming shift in federal nutrition program costs to certain states, as required under a controversial provision of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, is threatening to derail the effort of Boozman and House Ag Committee Chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson to pass a bill that updates key programs not dealt with in the OBBBA, which was fast-tracked through Congress last year.
Partisan division over spending for anti-hunger initiatives, specifically the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, has led to a stalemate on passage of full, five-year farm bills. Such legislation hasn’t cleared Congress since 2018.
While the House passed its version of a farm bill in April, Boozman’s proposed "farm bill 2.0" faces a steeper climb in the Senate, with 60 votes needed to advance a bill to a full floor vote. Republicans and Democrats are currently negotiating in hopes of reaching a deal on SNAP cost delays for states that is budget neutral, though that already tough goal has been made more difficult by the medical leave of Sen. Mitch McConnell, a member of the Ag Committee. If the Kentucky Republican remains out, it hurts the chances of the bill moving out of committee.
Congress also is simply running out of time, Johanns said.
“They're just not in session very much during an election year, and whatever doesn't get done before the August recess isn't going to get done before the elections,” he said. “Then the question is, can you get something like this done in a lame-duck session?”
If Democrats win control of the House, Senate, or both in the November midterm elections, “it’s not going to go anywhere,” he said. “They’re going to say, ‘Look, we can fight this out when we are in charge.’”
Ag policy watchers have questioned whether the once bipartisan nature of farm bills is irreparably broken now, with the impasse a ‘new normal’ that Congress will have to keep working around. The initial inclusion of federal food programs in farm bills was meant to gain support and interest from lawmakers in districts and states without a heavy agricultural presence.
“The ‘new normal’ has been building for a long time,” said Johanns, who recalls giving speeches as long ago as 2013 saying, “Wow, it’s getting tough to pass a farm bill.”
“It was becoming more and more obvious that a bipartisan farm bill was going to be hard to achieve, just because the wishes and desires of Democrats and Republicans were just so different,” he said. “There was always this kind of coalition filled with tension about how much of this was going to be truly farm-related? And how much of it was going to be nutrition-related? And how much was going to be conservation? And on and on.”
“It was always a challenging coalition,” he said. “Now it's become a battle.”
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