Skip to main content

Record Soybean Harvest, but Buyers are Scarce

China's farmers boosted soybean output by 23.7 percent--as directed by authorities--but now they're having trouble finding buyers for the beans. 

Chinese officials launched a frenetic campaign to boost soybean output in 2022 in order to reduce reliance on imported soybeans. Statistics show that area planted in soybeans increased 21.7 percent, exceeding the goal for soybean and oilseed planting set by last year's "Number one document" to increase soybean self-sufficiency. Goaded on by very generous soybean subsidies and hectoring by officials, the output exceeded 20 million metric tons for the first time ever. 

The harvest total is nevertheless still far short of the 91-million-ton import total for the 2022 calendar year just announced by customs officials.

Soybeans harvested on the outskirts of Beijing.

The news is not all good for farmers, though. Today an agricultural official fretted about falling soybean prices at a press conference on agricultural affairs. The official blamed the problem on weak demand and speculated that things might improve as business returns to normal after the lifting of virus lockdowns and as cafeterias and restaurants reopen after the Spring Festival holiday. 

A Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences soybean analyst told State newspaper Xinjing Bao that the surge of buyers that usually appears in the weeks before the Spring Festival holiday has not materialized this year. He also blamed the low protein content of soybeans grown in the northeastern region. He said about 90 percent of soybeans grown in China are used for food products that require beans high in protein. Most of the soybeans are produced in the northeastern provinces where beans tend to have high oil content and less protein. These beans are too expensive to compete with imported soybeans to produce oil and soybean meal, but their protein content is not high enough to make them suitable for food processing. Soybeans grown in Provinces like Hubei, Anhui, Henan and Shandong have high er protein but the quantity is limited.

At the news conference, the agricultural official called on processors to buy more soybeans, gave out a hotline phone number, and promised to match up buyers with sellers in online trade fairs. The soybean analyst proposed even more subsidies--subsidies for farmers to tide them over as prices fall and costs rise, and subsidies for State reserve buyers that would help them keep their prices firm. The analyst said State reserve buyers have been cutting their prices, and private buyers typically use State reserve prices as a guide for setting their own prices. The analyst also recommended research on soybean varieties with high protein.


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Xi Jinping's Doctoral Thesis

Xi Jinping is the vice president and presumed next president of China but little is known about him. In this post the dimsums blog offers its contribution to the genre of Xi Jinping-ology by conveying Xi's decade-old views on agricultural markets. Ten years ago Xi Jinping wrote a thesis, "Tentative Study of Agricultural Marketization" (中国农村市场化研究) for a Doctor of Law degree at Tsinghua University in Beijing, a top breeding-ground for Chinese officials. The dimsums blogger has spent several hours poring over the 200-plus page tome to see what it reveals about Dr. Xi. The thesis is remarkably close to what China has been doing lately in agricultural policy, suggesting that Xi (or the person who actually wrote the thesis) has a major say in policy or is at least in agreement with what's being done. There is nothing adventurous, controversial (or insightful) in the thesis. It seems to be the work of a wonkish technocrat who is not prone to talk out of turn or wander from...
15 comments
Read more

Divergence in U.S. & Chinese egg prices

High egg prices are a hot topic in the United States. China, in contrast, has a glut of eggs and depressed prices.  The March 14, 2025 USDA Agricultural Marketing Service weekly eggs market overview reported that U.S. egg prices continued declining during the second week of March as the supply situation improved. No significant highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) outbreaks have occurred in March and U.S. egg demand is relatively light. The average U.S. wholesale price for Grade A large white eggs was $4.15 per dozen, down sharply from their February peak.  Until 2021, Chinese and U.S. wholesale egg prices had been roughly equal at about $1-to-$2 per dozen with no trend. U.S. prices fluctuated more than Chinese prices, so the U.S. price was sometimes higher, sometimes lower than the Chinese price after converting them to dollars per dozen.  Chinese prices converted using monthly exchange rate and assuming 0.6 kg per dozen. Sources: USDA and China Ministry of Agricult...
Post a Comment
Read more

China's Corn & Wheat Imports Down 97% From Last Year

China's first customs data for 2025 feature a 97-percent decline in corn and wheat imports from a year earlier. Soybean imports were up slightly by volume (but down in value), and dairy, pork, poultry, and seafood imports rebounded year-on-year. Life was less sweet in China with a 93.7% decline in sugar imports, and drinking appears to be up as wine and beer imports posted gains.   China's agricultural imports for January-February 2025 were down 14.7 percent from a year earlier. The value of farm and food goods imported for the first two months of 2025 totaled $30.7 billion, down $5.26 billion from the same period in 2024. China's exports of agricultural products during January-February totaled $15.2 billion, up $393 million from a year earlier.  Data from China Customs Administration website. As usual, soybeans were the largest component of China's agricultural imports during January-February 2025 with a value of $6.3 billion. Meat imports were valued at $4.1 billion, ...
2 comments
Read more