Brazil’s growing challenge to US agriculture is spreading to another crop: sorghum. Having already ceded leadership to Brazil in soybeans and cotton, as well as other agricultural products including beef, US farmers now risk losing ground on a drought-tolerant grain long prized by Asian buyers. Brazil has just shipped its first-ever cargo of sorghum to China, and is boosting output to nearly match the US.

That comes as trade friction and erratic export demand leave American growers stranded during harvest season, raising worries that the grain will become the next casualty in a broader shift toward South American supply. “Brazil is not that much further behind the US these days,” said Tim Lust, chief executive officer of the National Sorghum Producers Association, based in Lubbock, Texas.

“They’ve certainly been growing rapidly in sorghum, like they have in a lot of crops.”The US is also vying against Australia and Argentina, which both supply China and rank as the world’s second- and third-largest exporters of the grain.

The challenge for US farmers is that the crop’s biggest export market has also been one of its least predictable.

China uses sorghum mostly to feed hogs and make the clear liquor baijiu, and its purchases of the US grain once topped $2 billion more than a decade ago. But exports plunged to about $186 million in 2019 during President Donald Trump’s initial trade war with China and fell to just $86 million in 2025. Demand for imports in China currently remains weak amid ample domestic supplies. The swings present an unreliable signal for US farmers deciding what to plant. Sorghum, typically a cheaper alternative to corn, is already being squeezed out in states such as Nebraska by corn and soybeans, which generally offer bigger yields and a broader base of demand.

US output is set to drop 33% this season from a year earlier after farmers planted less and drought in the southern Plains hurt yields.

“We’re obviously in a competitive world, and that’s reality,” said Lust.

“That’s why it’s much more important for us to get these trade deals worked out and be able to grow and produce, and meet the market demands of the customers we have.”Lust sent a letter to Trump last month asking the administration to secure annual commitments for China to buy 5 million to 7 million tons of US sorghum. China is set to reduce duties on US sorghum, as well as wheat and corn, according to lists released by the two countries following a September summit between Trump and Xi Jinping. Some farmers are instead looking for ways to escape the uncertainty of export markets altogether. Brad Dusenbery raises about 700 acres in Nebraska and is building a small stone mill in Beatrice, in the southeastern corner of the state, where he aims to make an all-purpose sorghum flour for products ranging from cookies to hamburger buns.

He’s transitioning to organic production methods and plans to avoid relying on exports, having little hope for any consistency on trade. “My whole goal is to be out of the export business,” he said. Brazilian farmers, meanwhile, are moving in the opposite direction.

Sorghum has increasingly caught on as a second crop there, planted after soybeans are harvested. The US Department of Agriculture said in a report last year that the grain is “widely adapted” to the climate and soil conditions of various regions in Brazil. It has the backing of major ethanol manufacturers like Inpasa Agroindustrial SA — the nation’s largest ethanol producer has recently started up new plants that can process both corn and sorghum. Brazil has more than doubled sorghum production over the past four years, and further expansion is expected. Rabobank estimates output could reach as much as 10 million metric tons by 2031, up from roughly 6 million last season.

That expanding production now has a major new outlet. China’s state-owned crop trader Cofco International loaded the first-ever cargo of Brazilian sorghum bound for China in August, fueling optimism that the country can challenge the US in the global market.

“People are already talking about Brazil surpassing the US as the world’s top producer in a few years,” said Frederico Botelho, a researcher at Brazil’s state-owned agriculture science company Embrapa.

As much as 2.4 million tons of sorghum are set to load from Brazilian ports this year through the end of October, mostly to China, according to data compiled by exporters group ANEC. That compares with no meaningful shipments in 2025.

“China has always signaled it doesn’t want to depend on one single supplier and wants to diversify,” says Minas Gerais-based Marco Castelli, commercial director at local grains storage and trading company Agrobom.

This means the Brazilian sorghum market has what it needs to develop and grow, he added. “To me, this is a market that’s here to stay.”