Dim Sums: Agricultural Markets in China

China's COFCO was the top-ranked grain trading company in the latest Fortune Global 500. COFCO ranked 157 with revenue of $81.95 billion. Its ranking was lower than last year's 133. COFCO was still ahead of Archer Daniels Midland (ranked 167), Wilmar (195), Bunge (196), Louis Dreyfus (287), Olam (302), and CHS (468). The rankings of grain trading companies were pulled from Fortune's list and compiled by China Oil Guidance Net . Cargill is the largest grain trading company but it is not in the Fortune 500 ranking because it is a privately held company; Cargill's revenue for its 2025 fiscal year was $154 billion.  Two Chinese companies were ranked in the top 10: State Grid (3) and China National Petroleum (10). Over the years, Chinese government and industry officials have been obsessed with expanding COFCO to compete with so-called ABCDs (ADM, Bunge, Cargill, and Louis Dreyfus). COFCO grew by absorbing Chinese companies like Chinatex and Mengniu Dairy as well as foreign...

China's propaganda authorities revealed that data on rice production and other activities is severely inflated by local leaders who are under pressure to create the illusion of prosperity and growth whether it exists or not. Officials in Beijing fault their underlings for failing to "seek truth from facts," but it is Beijing's "food security" measures that are based on "facts" from the last century. China actually produces too much rice, so there is no need to pile unrealistic rice-planting quotas on village leaders and farmers.  A July 14 Central China TV broadcast reported shocking discrepancies between reported rice cultivation and actual figures  in Jianghua County of Hunan Province. While fields along the highway were planted in rice as dictated by quotas handed out to each town and village, a drone flight revealed that fields hidden behind hills were actually planted in cash crops. After checking the ledgers, the reporter found that a village...

China is having terrible floods all over the country. Where are its emergency food reserves? I searched online for news or photos of food distribution in flood areas and found nothing.  On July 19, the director of China's Food and Strategic Commodity Reserves Administration went to Shanghai --hit by serious flooding this week--to inspect emergency reserves. He is shown in a warehouse accompanied by 10 people who are all contemplating a folding emergency table about 2 feet tall for use in disaster areas. No food or other items are visible in the warehouse. Wooden structures in the background are hidden behind a black curtain.  The director issued orders about building up reserves to prepare for disasters, locating them strategically, and replenishing them, but he said nothing about distributing food supplies to areas devastated by floods this month--including Shanghai. Are the food reserves a myth? Are the warehouses flooded? Canned food for emergency use is for sale on the Tao...

China imported 13.55 million metric tons of soybeans in June 2026. It was the second-largest monthly total ever, reflecting the peak shipping month for Brazilian soybeans two months earlier and the arrival of beans that had been delayed by stringent inspections earlier in the year. Imports of U.S. soybeans during June reflect the arrival of beans purchased in fulfillment of China's purchase commitment made at last October's summit. China paid a $20-per-ton premium for U.S. soybeans versus Brazilian beans during June. China customs data. Imports from Brazil totaled 12.08 mmt during June and imports from the U.S. totaled 1.27 mmt, while Canada supplied 33,604 metric tons, Russia supplied 63,734 metric tons, Ukraine supplied 5,357 metric tons, and smaller quantities came from Benin and Ethiopia.  China has imported a cumulative 34.75 mmt of soybeans from Brazil in the first 6 months of 2026, up from 31.86 mmt a year earlier. Cumulative imports from the U.S. are 9.31 mmt versus 16....

China's creation of "high standard farmland" is harder than expected. Users of the land don't have money for improvements and couldn't reap a return on investments if they did. Responsibility for improving and maintaining land falls to an army of bureaucrats who have their own set of interests.  Last week China's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (MARA) launched a campaign to  root out abuses and dysfunction in the high standard farmland construction program . At a meeting last week officials were ordered to "take decisive action to "address and rectify prominent issues" and "squarely face existing problems" with the massive farmland construction program that is endorsed by Xi Jinping and viewed as essential to national food security.  The first in a series of plans for building high standard farmland was issued in 2013 by China's State Council. The program funds construction projects to level fields, consolidate fragmented...

China's hog price has dipped below its chicken price--an unusual phenomenon that indicates the seriousness of China's pork glut in 2026. The industry is producing more pigs than the market can absorb, and in doing so it is consuming vast amounts of feed grain and soybean meal. China's poultry industry is expanding rapidly, but the extra poultry supplies are substituting for imports and pouring into the export market.  Over the past 2 decades Chinese pork prices rose and fell in a familiar cyclical pattern. During downturns, pork prices approached chicken prices briefly every 3 years or so before turning back upward. Since 2021, though, gyrations in pork prices have become more pronounced and parity between pork and chicken prices has become more frequent. The latest 2-year slide in pork prices has resulted in the pork price being less than the chicken price for four months and counting in 2026. The price of live hogs was stuck at about RMB 10 per kg from April to June--clos...