Dim Sums: Agricultural Markets in China

Tang Renjian, China's Minister of Agriculture from 2020 to 2024, was given a death sentence with a 2-year reprieve for taking bribes totaling RMB 284 million, according to China's central news organization . Like most things in China, this is probably not what it appears to be.  Former Agriculture Minister Tang Renjian in court. The Changchun Intermediate People's Court of Jilin Province found former Party Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (MARA) Tang Renjian guilty of taking bribes during his tenure at various posts from 2007 to 2024. Tang was accused of using his power and status to assist units and individuals in business operations, project contracts, and job adjustments. Earlier this year, Radio Free Asia reported that Tang was accused of accepting gifts and property for help in business deals, favoring relatives, making "blind decisions" in poverty alleviation programs, and interfering in judicial decisions. It sounds like Tang acte...

China's Agriculture Ministry is campaigning to bring farmers up to speed on the latest seeds and techniques so they can achieve higher crop yields. The details suggest that a core part of the plan is to accelerate the consolidation of farms into larger mechanized operations to replace fragmented plots cultivated by aging villagers using outdated techniques. A Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (MARA) video conference on September 25  explained that Xi Jinping has decreed that raising grain yields across broad areas of farmland will be central to boosting grain production capacity in "the new situation." All agricultural departments and communist party organizations were therefore instructed to elevate yield-improvement over broad areas as a key priority.  A Chinese State Council press conference on September 16 announced that 702 counties were chosen this year to implement a broad-area yield improvement plan (粮油作物大面积单产提升行动). The objective is to disseminate seeds, ...

Chinese authorities met with 25 major hog companies on September 16 in an ongoing effort to eliminate excess capacity that is driving down hog prices. Companies and provincial officials were ordered to reduce productive sow herds by 1 million head by the end of January 2026. Companies were ordered to reduce their hog slaughter by 10 percent during 2026, cut back "secondary fattening" and keep slaughter weights at no more than 120 kg. Central and local officials were ordered to stop subsidies and bankers were ordered to stop giving loans for hog farm expansions. Provincial officials are under pressure to tighten up on enforcement of environmental regulations, a campaign that could shut down large numbers of non-compliant farms.  The agriculture ministry's livestock and veterinary bureau and the National Development and Reform Commission's price bureau gathered representatives from 25 major hog-producing companies at the September 16 meeting in Beijing. This was the l...

China's border inspectors have been discovering a lot more problems with imported pork and poultry. There were few rejections of either type of meat until 2024 when rejections of imported pork spiked during July and October. Rejections of poultry soared during 2025. Rejections of both pork and poultry peaked at their highest ever levels of 2,000 metric tons in June 2025.  Jan 2022-July 2025. Compiled from reports on China customs website . China had never rejected more than a couple of hundred metric tons of pork in a month until July 2024, when inspectors turned away 1,000 metric tons. Rejections of pork rebounded to nearly 900 metric tons in October and remained at a high level in the first 7 months of 2025. China's pork rejections peaked at record-high 2,000 metric tons monthly in June and July 2025.   Jan 2024-July 2025. Compiled from reports on China Customs website . The increase in imported pork problems just happened to begin in July 2024, the month after China an...

 Brazil's soybean exports to China began to slow in August, with 7.9 million metric tons shipped, according to Brazilian export data. That's a slower pace than the 10-to-11 mmt monthly exports during March to July 2025. (But it exceeds the 5.9 mmt exported to China a year ago in August 2024.) As Brazil's huge--but finite--supply of soybeans shrinks, it will become increasingly expensive for Chinese importers to maintain their embargo on U.S. soybeans. Brazilian exports from UN Comtrade This year, arrivals of Brazilian soybeans clearing customs in China seem to have lagged Brazilian exports by 1 or 2 months. For example, China's first spike in arrivals of Brazilian beans this year was in May (12.1 mmt), two months after Brazilian shipments surged in March (11.1 mmt). The August 2025 drop-off in shipments shown in Brazilian exports may show up in China's October import data.  China customs data. Detailed data for August have not yet been released. As Brazilian bean su...

China's frenzy to snatch up record volumes of Brazilian soybeans has had surprisingly little impact on the cost of its soybean imports. The record volume of soybeans arriving in China during May-August 2025 had the lowest per-ton cost since pre-pandemic years. As the southern hemisphere export campaign has passed its peak, competition for Brazilian beans is finally heating up. But China's importers have not yet felt impact of rising Brazilian prices.  In historical context, China's record pace of soybean imports during May-August 2025 stands out clearly, with a total of 50 mmt arriving over those 4 months combined. Most came from Brazil. China now imports from Brazil nearly year-round, but there is still a seasonal pattern. According to Brazilian sources, Brazil's August soybean exports totaled 9.33 mmt--many of which will end up in China this month. That was record-high for August, but down 23.8% from July, suggesting that China's imports of Brazilian beans have pa...

 China imported 12.28 million metric tons of soybeans in August 2025. This is the fourth month in a row of record or near-record imports since South American beans began arriving in large quantities in May.  With one month left in the marketing year, China's cumulative total of imports for 2024/25 is 96.5 mmt (about 3 percent more than the same period in 2023/24). It looks likely that China will equal or surpass last year's 105 mmt market year soybean import total.  Source: China customs data. China's customs administration has not released August data by trade partner, but it is likely that nearly all of these imports came from South America. With minimal amounts of U.S. soybeans expected to arrive in August or September, China's total imports of U.S. soybeans are likely to hit 24.2 mmt, a market share of about 23 percent.  Soybean imports are not likely to be sustained at this torrid pace in the upcoming 2025/26 marketing year as the northern hemisphere harvest pro...

The risk of a soybean shortage is "manageable" if U.S.-China trade negotiations remain at an impasse, according to a tour of cooking oil manufacturers in southern China conducted by industry analysts in August . Chinese edible oils processors are watching negotiations and concerned about Brazilian and U.S. soybean supplies, but the report's authors saw little risk of an oilseed market shortfall until March 2026. Industry analysts associated with MySteel agricultural commodities visited edible oils processing facilities in China's Guangdong and Guangxi Provinces--two important points of entry for oilseeds and edible oil imports--during August 2025. MySteel is one of the more objective providers of agricultural market information in China. The report was directed at futures market investors. China has become reliant on imported soybeans, rapeseed, rapeseed oil, and palm oil. Guangdong, a key export manufacturing hub, has 14 edible refineries. Guangxi borders Vietnam, an...