US sorghum boom fuelled by drought, China moonshine, hogs

Chicago

ACROSS the Great Plains, farmers are turning to a little-known grain called sorghum for relief from a two-year slump in agriculture prices.

A kernel-yielding stalk that's native to Africa, sorghum has three things going for it right now: it's cheap to plant; it holds up better in drought-like conditions than other crops; and most importantly, demand is soaring in China, where farmers feed the plant to their hog herds, and moonshiners make it into a whiskey-like liquor called baijiu. While corn, soyabeans and wheat slumped into bear markets last year amid a global supply glut, sorghum prices have held stable.