China Meets Soybean Purchase Commitment; Keeps it Hidden

China has met its 12-million-ton U.S. soybean purchase commitment, according to reports by Reuters and other Western news media--based mostly on USDA reports of sales to China since the October 30 Trump-Xi meeting. U.S. Treasury Secretary Bessent declared in Davos, Switzerland that he was assured by Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng that China had met the commitment. 

The commitment has been met largely (perhaps entirely) by State-owned Chinese companies buying beans at inflated prices to stock Government reserves, an indication that the Chinese Government is making an effort to please the Americans. However, the Chinese Government has never acknowledged the commitment. Back in November 2025 China's Ministry of Commerce refused to acknowledge that the soybean purchase commitments had been made.

So far this week, the news of about fulfillment of the purchase commitment is mostly absent from Chinese news sites reporting on soybeans. Reports could come out later this week after propagandists have finished debating how to spin the story and massage the news. 

One article on a Chinese edible oils market news site did report that the purchase commitment had been fulfilled, citing Secretary Bessent and "trade sources," with shipments taking place between December and May. "Uncle Biao," who blogs about international affairs, trumpeted Bessent's declaration and boasted that soybeans are now a bargaining chip, asserting that financial pressure on Midwestern farmers who had mostly voted for Trump will put pressure on the U.S. administration to make a trade deal. 

Facts in the Chinese articles so far are regurgitated from foreign news reports. Neither the edible oils news article nor "Uncle Biao" cited any Chinese sources, nor did they mention the Chinese Vice Premier. "Uncle Biao" cited the White House as the source of China's commitment to continue buying 25 million tons annually for the next 3 years. 

"Uncle Biao" said the commitment had been fulfilled "on time," but the original announcement from the White House said the purchases would be made by the end of 2025 (3 weeks ago).

Both of the Chinese articles emphasized that purchases by China's State-owned companies COFCO and Sinograin had fulfilled the commitment and that most of the U.S. soybeans will go into national reserves, and that private Chinese companies continue to buy cheaper South American soybeans. Uncle Biao mentioned that 4 auctions since December have sold soybeans from reserves to make way for the American beans. (These auctions sold a cumulative 2 million metric tons.) He boasted that the purchases are a masterstroke of import diversification while simultaneously bolstering reserves to maintain national food security.

The Chinese Government's actions in orchestrating the purchases indicate that China's leadership really wants a trade deal with the U.S. But they do not want to acknowledge that they made the purchase commitment since they want to present themselves as having the upper hand in negotiations.

China: Record Meat & Grain Output in 2025; Declining Farm Prices and Imports

China's 2025 agricultural production data shows meat output grew 4.2%, exceeding 100 million metric tons for the first time, while grain output grew 1.2% to 714.88 mmt. Soybeans stood out with growing imports during 2025, but most of China's other agricultural imports went down. Most agricultural prices also went down, reflecting an economy that appears weaker than the 5% GDP growth reported for 2025.

Meat output growth featured 4.1% growth in pork output, 6.7% growth in poultry, and 2.8% growth in beef, according to the China National Bureau of Statistics preliminary data release for 2025. Milk production grew marginally, and production of eggs and mutton fell. This blog previously reported the Bureau's report of a record grain harvest and 7.7-percent increase in cotton output.

Trade data released by the customs administration show imports of wheat, corn and cotton plummeted during calendar year 2025. Imported soybeans rose 6.5 percent last year to 111.83 mmt, comprising 84% of China's soybean supply. Meat imports declined by 8.7% last year. Imports comprised 5.7% of China's meat supplies, including a 26% share of beef supplies which likely explains why China implemented beef safeguard tariffs last month. Imports comprise 13.9% of cotton supplies. Exports of apparel were down 5% in 2025. China's overall agricultural imports were down 3.6% to $207 billion, while its agricultural exports were up 1.2% to $104 billion.

China did not escape its pork glut despite Chinese authorities browbeating hog companies to cut back on capacity for half the year. In 2025, the number of slaughtered hogs hit a record 719.73 million (up 2.4% year over year), and pork output rose to a record 59.38 million metric tons (up 4.1% as "second fattening" boosted slaughter weights). The end-of-year inventory of swine was up 0.5% from a year ago. The swine inventory ended 2024 at 427.43 million, rose to a peak of 437 million in Q3 2025, and fell to 429.67 million at the end of 2025.

Most farm prices went down during 2025 since China's market did not grow enough to absorb the extra farm output. Hog prices fell 11.2% for the year, and Q4 2025 prices were down 23.7% year-over-year. Egg prices crashed 12%. The 1.2-percent increase in grain output was more than offset by a 2.6-percent decrease in grain prices. On the other hand, cattle prices were up 2.8% in 2025 and 14.7% year-on-year for Q4. Vegetable prices were up 5.6% in Q4 after heavy rains during the fall crimped production, causing prices of tomatoes and some other vegetables to double year-over-year in December.

The CPI was unchanged from 2024, but that hides year-over-year declines in CPI during February-September, with a slight recovery in prices at year-end. The December CPI was up 0.8% year-over-year. The food, alcohol and tobacco component of the CPI was down -0.7% for the year, but it was up 0.8% in December. The December CPI showed vegetable prices were up 18.2% year-over-year, fruit prices were up 4.4%, egg prices were down 12.7%, and pork prices were down 14.6%.

The Bureau of Statistics reported that GDP grew 5% in 2025, which turns out to be exactly the target Xi Jinping had previously set (wow, it must be amazing to have a national leader who can predict economic growth with such precision!). The "primary sector," which includes mainly agriculture, grew 3.9%, and its share of GDP fell to 6.7%. Fixed asset investment in agriculture grew only 2.3%, but real estate investment dropped 17.2%. 

Per capita disposable income also grew exactly 5% to RMB 43,377, but retail sales grew only 3.7%. The unemployment rate was reported to be 5.1%. Per-capita consumer expenditure grew 3.7% for urban residents and 5.3% for rural residents

The population decreased 3.39 million, with 11.31 million deaths and 7.92 million births reported. The population of rural residents declined 13.69 million and the urban population increased by 10.2 million. The population is 67.89% urban.

The number of rural people with nonfarm employment rose 0.5% to 301.15 million, of which 180 million were migrants working away from home in 2025. Their average monthly earnings were RMB 5,075 (about $725), an increase of just 2.5%.

China's Soybean Imports Hit 111.83 MMT Record in CY2025

China imported 111.8 million metric tons (mmt) of soybeans in calendar year 2025, a record high. Imports were up 6.78 mmt from 105 mmt in CY2024. China's 2025 soybean imports were valued at $50.35 billion. Imports for December 2025 were 8.04 mmt, down just 70,000 metric tons from the previous month and about the same as a year earlier.

Compiled from China customs data.

The unit value of December imports was $482 per metric ton, the highest monthly value of the year. The unit value has increased 11% since June's $434 per metric ton (the year's lowest value).

Imports have declined each month since September, reflecting shrinking supplies of Brazilian soybeans. Monthly imports will likely shrink again in January-February. However, China's monthly soybean imports equaled or exceeded year-earlier same-month imports in each month from May to December of 2025. 

Compiled from China customs data.

Chinese customs has not yet released detailed data for December 2025 showing sources of soybean imports, but that data will likely show that imports were mostly from Brazil and none came from the United States. USDA export inspections show 1.2 mmt of soybeans were exported to China in December and 900,000 mt in the first week of January, but these will not clear customs in China until February or later. It is rumored that Chinese customs will also increase the time needed to complete inspections to 25 days. The uptick in Chinese purchases from the U.S. during December-January will probably not clear customs in China until March-May when imports from Brazil will also begin their seasonal spike.  

Beef Safeguards: Blaming Imports for China's Own Destabilizing Events

China's commerce officials blamed surging imports for a decline in beef prices to justify "safeguard" tariffs on imported beef announced last week. In fact, gyrations in Chinese beef prices were due to destabilizing events in China's own market. 

Chinese officials suggested that a rising trend in beef imports drove down beef prices during 2019-2024. In fact, 2019-24 was a 6-year-long beef bubble that inflated and then popped. The phony "analysis" by China's Commerce Ministry ignored the inverted-U-shaped pattern of prices: the average price of beef reported by China's Ag Ministry rose 20% from RMB 73.20 per KG in 2024 to a peak of RMB 87.59 in 2022. Then the price fell 18% to RMB 71.89 in 2024. During 2019-2022 China's beef imports AND its domestic prices both increased, undermining the claim that rising imports caused prices to fall. Beef imports then stabilized between 2022 and 2024. Prices declined sharply in 2024, but the increase in imports that year was much more moderate than in earlier years. 

Average annual wholesale prices from China Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.
Import data from China Customs Administration.

The rise in beef imports during 2019-21 helped fill a meat shortage in China that turned into a glut. Monthly price data from China's Ag Ministry show that the increase in beef prices occurred during a concentrated period of 2019-20. This was exactly the time that China had a severe pork shortage due to an African swine fever epidemic. The boom in beef prices exactly corresponds to the much larger spike in pork prices during that time. The shortage of pork spurred an increase in demand for beef that drove up prices. Most of the increase in China's beef imports occurred during 2020.

The peak in beef prices during 2021-22 corresponds to the recovery of the pork industry which drove down pork prices, reducing the incentive to substitute beef for pork. Beef imports continued growing at a more moderate pace. 2022-23 was a time of high commodity prices across the board.

Data from China's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.

In early 2023 China's demand for beef and many other commodities crashed. After China ended its zero-covid lockdowns in late 2022 the economy began to tank in early 2023. Beef demand peaked and beef prices began a severe decline. Pork was in excess supply as a handful of huge pork companies raced to open industrial-scale farms and capture market share. The dairy industry also encountered a glut, and a massive cull of dairy cows added to the beef supply in 2023. 

Last year this blog discussed the recent fluctuation in China's beef and dairy industry and the announcement of emergency measures to bail out beef and dairy farms in September 2024. The safeguard tariff investigation began about 3 months later; bailouts for beef and dairy were also ordered in the 2025 "Document No. 1" on rural policy. 

Converting China's domestic prices to U.S. dollars and comparing them with export prices reported in FAO's GIEWS database shows that China's price rose much faster than U.S. or Brazilian prices during 2019-20, creating a huge spread between Chinese beef prices and imported beef prices. Brazil is the predominant supplier of China's imports. Brazil's price is still about half of China's internal price after the drop in Chinese prices. U.S. beef prices have risen to parity with Chinese prices. 

China's Ministry of Ag price converted to USD.
U.S. and Brazil export prices from UN FAO GIEWS database.

China is blaming its trading partners for gyrations in its beef industry that actually were created by destabilizing events within China and by subsidized overexpansion of its beef and pork production capacity. The surge of beef imports filled a vacuum in meat supply during 2019-20. When China's domestic pork and beef producers overexpanded and drove down prices, officials spuriously interpreted correlation as "causation" and falsely blamed the industry's troubles on imports. 

Brazilian industry groups quoted by Reuters raised concerns about the Chinese tariffs. An Australian official suggested that the Chinese safeguards are an example of departure from the rules-based trading order and inconsistent application of rules. A kowtowing Uruguayan meat industry official praised China's transparency and its adherence to WTO law in imposing the safeguard measures. 

Fortunately, the safeguards will not have a major impact on exporters because global beef supplies are tight and prices are high. The safeguard tariffs don't kick in until trading partners' exports exceed an annual quota based on recent export volumes. Brazilian and Australian officials were confident they could find other markets for their beef if sales to China are curtailed. China's beef imports for the first 11 months of 2025 were about the same as the previous year. Beef prices in China are up nearly 8% year-over-year in December 2025--one of the few agricultural commodities with rising prices this year. 

China Expands Farming on Deserts, Mountains and Oceans

China is gearing up to grow food in its deserts, on its mountains and in the ocean. Propagandists show beautiful pictures and recite fake statistics, but no outsiders will be allowed to monitor these ecologically risky ventures. The plan envisions chains of mechanized farms and fisheries feeding warehouses, processing plants, and retailers controlled by industrial conglomerates to replace chaotic hordes of impoverished aging peasants, nomads, fishing boats and mountain dwellers collecting wild plants. 

The 2025 communist party "Document No. 1" on rural policy priorities called for building "a diversified food supply system" by building deep-sea "marine ranches", creating "forest granaries" in mountainous areas, improve the edible fungus industry, and promote the cultivation of algae as part of China's "big food concept" and "big agriculture concept." These will likely be included in new 5-year plans to be issued in 2026.

The initiative to ramp up grain output in Xinjiang is a headline project. Last year this blog reported on China's celebration of Xinjiang for exceeding its targeted grain output of 22 million metric tons in 2024 a year after it was designated as a "national reserve granary", a status that comes with numerous subsidies and political status. Last month the Food and Commodity Reserves Administration held a video conference promising to invest in infrastructure for procuring, storing, processing and distributing grain in Xinjiang with the goal of building up the region as a major national supply base for agricultural and livestock products. The project will utilize the "aid to Xinjiang" platform (援疆平台) that matches up companies, bureaucratic entities and universities in rich eastern provinces with counterparts in Xinjiang to establish processing and sales networks there, invest in Xinjiang's grain storage and logistics facilities, provide training and R&D, and create Xinjiang food brands. Entities involved include COFCO, Food and Commodity Reserve Bureaus in Sichuan and Henan Provinces, a food company in Shandong, and a technical university in Henan. Others attending the video conference included Sinograin, ChemChina, Beidahuang Nongken Group, China Rongtong Asset Management Group, CITIC Construction, and JD.com.

This year's Xinjiang grain output was not as stellar as last year's, but it was one of only 3 regions that increased its grain output by more than 100,000 metric tons (others were Heilongjiang and Inner Mongolia, also on China's periphery). Xinjiang had the highest grain yield per hectare of any region.

In March 2025 a proposal to build "grain production bases" in arid regions of the Loess Plateau was made to the Chinese Peoples Political Consultative Conference by a professor at Northwest Agriculture and Forestry University. This region of North Central China at the western end of the Great Wall is known for brown sandy soil prone to erosion and crushing poverty. The proposed project would harvest rainwater, use irrigation techniques, cover fields with plastic to prevent evaporation, fully mechanize farming, apply Beidou (China's GPS) to control farming equipment and application of water and fertilizer, and integrate crop and livestock farming. The professor called for including the project in the 15th 5-year plan to cover 2.67 million hectares with a goal of raising grain output by 4 million metric tons. 

In August, China's agriculture ministry responded to the proposal by explaining that the ministry has been conducting similar work in the Loess region and will include elements of the proposal in the new 5-year plan. The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs plans to promote water-saving agriculture in the Loess region, build "high-standard farmland", resolve drought-induced water shortages, share information between meteorological, water conservancy, and emergency management departments, and scale up farms by nurturing "family farms" and cooperatives, and create industrial chains led by big companies. Shaanxi Province's water management department described its plans to upgrade irrigation to create a "second granary" in the province. Last winter and spring the Loess region experienced a serious drought that impacted wheat production, but authorities insisted they had averted declines in output by crash irrigation programs. Data released this month show Shaanxi and neighboring Ningxia were the only two provinces that had a decline in grain output in 2025.  

Another initiative to create a "plateau granary" on the Tibetan Plateau of western Sichuan and Tibet has been underway for several years. The Tibetan climate is not suited to rice, wheat or corn, so authorities upgraded highland barley and potatoes--common crops in Tibetan regions--to be included in the official definition of "grain" crops for food security evaluations. Last year the academies of agricultural science in Chongqing and Sichuan Province agreed to supply seeds to grow a variety of broad beans in a Tibetan area of Sichuan. In Tibet, highland barley production was revived by planting improved seed and using "earthworm compost" to treat salinized soil. Mechanized planters were used to expand rapeseed production in an area of Tibet. Tibet and neighboring Qinghai have the smallest grain output of all Province-level regions (excluding the Beijing and Shanghai municipalities) and their grain production increased only marginally in 2025.

China's industrialized food production is also moving offshore. Buoys and nets stretching to the horizon and big fishing boats are features of a "blue granary" of marine farming off the coast of Shandong Province, one of 169 national-level "marine ranches." The "Changdao Marine Ecological Civilization Comprehensive Experimental Zone" raises oysters in cages over a 467-hectare patch of ocean off the coast of Rongcheng City in Shandong Province. A manager emphasizes the stable profits of factory-style cage-farming and low labor requirements of 4 workers to produce 1 million fish. The project is run by a subsidiary of CIMC, a state-owned shipping container conglomerate that also builds boats and makes IT equipment for high-tech monitoring and mapping. Securities Times' description of other cage-farming and kelp-breeding ventures also highlighted a specially built vessel to harvest krill in the Arctic.

These initiatives are part of Xi Jinping's vision for national food security. He views himself as a new (and perhaps better) incarnation of Mao Zedong who was also obsessed with the possibility of war over Taiwan (and with the Soviets) and consolidating control over Tibetan, Uighur, Manchurian and Mongolian regions the communists had conquered. Mao was obsessed with "modernization", put excessive trust in "science" that he didn't understand, and his paranoia drove him to build underground tunnels and to move industry to the hinterland. 

China's 1950s-era "Great Leap Forward" claimed to have made scientific breakthroughs that eliminated scarcity and created huge improvements in grain output. Xi Jinping's plan to produce crops in deserts, mountains and oceans also relies on purported scientific breakthroughs in seeds, "smart" farming, and machinery. Xinjiang's military-run Production Corps claims they have raised production by intercropping corn and wheat and by increasing planting density of winter wheat. "Smart" farming will monitor everything and automatically turn irrigation pipes, sprinklers, sprayers and heaters on and off. Irrigation experts have supposedly figured out how to bring irrigation water to places where crops have never been viable before. 

China's1950s Great Leap Forward put excessive faith in science, comparing high-tech farming to the Soviet Sputnik satellites

China's farming now relies on the currently fashionable "smart" technology, promising to achieve great productivity gains by using mostly unproven technology made by Chinese companies.

The Communist Party's obsession with secrecy is the most dangerous feature. No one knows anything about actual production except what is shown in staged propaganda photos. Visitors are only allowed to see model farms on tours guided by foreign affairs officials. During the Great Leap Forward city people and most officials in Beijing did not know people in the countryside were actually starving. Statistics reported fantastic increases in grain output, so officials were ordered to procure more grain and export it to Eastern Europe to buy industrial and military gear. 

Because of the obsession with secrecy, no one can verify that technologies are working. No one can verify that statistics provide an accurate portrayal of production and use of land, water, and soil quality.

Secrecy security meeting held for agricultural technicians in Chongqing during 2024.
The agricultural extension network will be used to disseminate secret information.

Moreover, the Chinese system has built-in incentives to embellish progress. Agricultural projects are funded by government subsidies and loans to Chinese companies that build and run the projects and sell the IT equipment, tractors, drones, fishing vessels, and infrastructure. Local governments and companies, therefore, have incentive to report great progress to keep the money flowing. 

An example of the tendency toward hidden corruption and shoddy implementation is a directive to improve the quality "high standard field" projects--probably China's biggest agricultural program--issued this month. The directive promised to conduct surprise inspections, tests and evaluations to rectify shoddy, substandard projects that have been "causing public dissatisfaction." It took 5+ years and billions of dollars spent on 50,000 projects for Chinese authorities to admit there was a problem. You can bet that projects hidden away in China's mountains, deserts and grassland have an even higher degree of corruption, waste, and fakery.

China's past devastation of its farming areas going back decades is tacitly acknowledged in the 2025 Document No.1 which called for measures to address problems of gully erosion of the country's rich "black soil" region in the Northeast, acidified land in the South, schemes to farm salinized land, and a series of orders to crack down on encroachments on farmland by construction of houses, digging scenic lakes, and planting non-grain crops. The document called for tracing and controlling heavy metal contamination of farmland and pledged to clean up black and odiferous bodies of water in rural areas. Years ago, China retired wheat fields in part of Hebei Province due to serious depletion of underground aquifers used for irrigation, idled rice fields in Hunan due to cadmium poisoning of soil, banned farming in arsenic-laced land in mining areas, and curtailed subsidies for rice irrigated from shrinking aquifers in Heilongjiang Province. A 10-year ban on fishing in the Yangtze River is in effect because it had been severely over-fished. An agriculture ministry discussion of the fishing ban this month emphasized policing activity, a demonstration of the lack of actual control authorities have on the ground.

Chinese authorities think they can address the ecological devastation by putting secretive, subsidized state-run companies in charge of farming, but there are still few deterrents to ecological destruction and strong incentives to hide problems.

China Cotton Production Up in 2025; Imports Plummet

Subsidies prompted record-high cotton planting in China's Xinjiang region this year despite declining farm prices. Imports of cotton from Brazil fell dramatically. Imports from China's new friends in Africa and Central Asia also plummeted. U.S. cotton has been mostly frozen out of China's market since the trade war began.

China's 2025 cotton output reached 6.641 million metric tons, up 477,000 metric tons from the previous year, a 7.7% increase. The increase in output reflected a 5% increase in area planted (up 140,900 hectares) and a 2.6% increase in yield (up 57.4 kg/ha). Data were released by China's National Bureau of Statistics in the 2025 cotton production communique. 

This year was China's second successive annual increase in cotton production and the highest value since output dropped below 7 mmt in 2009. China's record cotton production was 7.6 mmt in 2007.

Xinjiang Autonomous Region accounted for all of the boost in China's cotton output. Xinjiang produced 6.165 mmt, up 479,000 metric tons from last year. Xinjiang accounted for 93% of China's cotton output and 87% of area planted in cotton in 2025. The second-leading provinces were Shandong (output 128,000 metric tons), Hubei (9,200 mt), and Hunan (8,500 mt). 

Compiled from China National Bureau of Statistics.

China's cotton planting has collapsed in regions outside of Xinjiang since the 2007 peak. In contrast, area planted rose gradually in Xinjiang during 2009-18 and then stabilized at roughly 2.5 million hectares. After 2 years of expansion, the 2.59 million hectares planted in 2025 is a record for Xinjiang.

Compiled from China National Bureau of Statistics.

A Statistician from China's Statistics Bureau explained that Xinjiang is amenable to large-scale farms, is highly mechanized, and the "target price" in Xinjiang was relatively high this year, incentivizing production and prompting 2 years of expansion in area planted. (A subsidy proportional to the difference between the market price and a target of RMB 18,600 is given to Xinjiang farmers.) The statistician explained that relative returns to cotton are low in other regions of China, causing cotton area to shrink outside of Xinjiang. The statistician cited favorable weather, good field management and improved varieties for high yields in Xinjiang. 

China's cotton imports during the first 11 months of 2025 totaled 887,718 metric tons, down dramatically from 2.473 million metric tons during the same period in 2024. Imports from both of the top suppliers crashed. The 11-month total of China's cotton imports from Brazil plummeted from over 1 mmt during 2024 to just 358,000 metric tons in 2025. Imports from the United States fell from 865,000 metric tons during Jan-Nov 2024 to 106,000 metric tons in Jan-Nov 2025. Imports from Australia and Turkiye were steady but imports from most other countries declined. 

China's imports of cotton from 18 African countries shrank from over 60,000 metric tons in Jan-Nov 2024 to 25,000 metric tons this year. Imports from 4 Central Asian neighbors fell from 44,000 metric tons to 20,000 metric tons.

Compiled from China customs administration data.

Brazil was the top supplier of imported cotton during January-March this year. Australia was the main supplier during July-October. Brazil resumed its position as top supplier in November as imports from Brazil rebounded. Imports from the U.S. mostly stopped after the trade war heated up in March-April. 

Compiled from China customs administration data.

The expansion of cotton production in Xinjiang during the 2024 and 2025 harvest seasons (August-September) was accompanied by declines in Chinese cotton prices. These declines followed a surge in farm prices at harvest in 2023 and a bump in prices paid by companies that year--indicating a relatively tight cotton supply.  The modest rebound in imports during August-November 2025 comes despite the increase in output this year and another drop in domestic prices. 

Compiled from China National Bureau of Statistics and customs data.

Note that the "target price" of RMB 18,600 per ton (constant during 2023-25) exceeds the unit value of imported cotton by more than RMB 4300. Subsidies incentivize production in Xinjiang even when the price of imported cotton is falling. Moreover, declining cotton prices are not necessarily a big deterrent to production in Xinjiang if farmers are assured of a higher subsidy. (Note the farm price is a seed cotton price which is lower than the price of lint cotton. The seed cotton price is converted to a lint-equivalent price to calculate the subsidy based on its spread versus the target price which is also for lint cotton). The target price subsidy does not operate outside Xinjiang.

Soy Imports from Brazil in Seasonal Lull; Slide in Market Prices Suggests Spring Rebound

China's soybean imports dipped to 8.1 million metric tons in November 2025, and the calendar year total for January-November hit 103.79 mmt. November 2025 imports were up from 7.15 mmt from a year ago, and January-November 2025 imports are up from last year's pace of 97.1 mmt during the same period.

November's import volume was the second monthly decline in a row, reflecting seasonal decline in shipments from Brazil. In November China imported 5.85 mmt from Brazil, down from nearly 11 mmt in September 2025. Brazil supplied 72% of China's November soybean imports. Imports from Argentina increased marginally to 1.78 mmt in November, while imports from Canada increased slightly to 16,630 metric tons. Imports from Uruguay, Russia and Ukraine dropped in November. China had no imports of U.S. soybeans during November. The first shipments of U.S. beans since the resumption of purchases last month likely will show up in Chinese customs data in January. 

Compiled from China Customs data.

Compiled from China Customs data.

Soybean imports from Brazil have been rising in price as its shipping season winds down. The average value per ton of Brazilian soybeans arriving in China bottomed out at $431 per ton in June and has since risen to $474 per ton in November, a cumulative increase of 9.8%. This is consistent with Brazilian customs data which shows a rise from $384 per ton shipped to China in April to $436 per ton shipped in November, a cumulative increase of 13.6%. (There is a 2-month lag between Brazilian shipments and arrivals in China, so the increases in Brazilian beans during October-November will be reflected in China's December-January import data.)

Compiled from China and Brazil customs data.

During December Brazilian prices have been declining again as prospects of another record soybean crop in Brazil solidify. Brazil's Paranaguá FOB quote peaked at about $12.40 per bushel at the end of November, a slight premium over the U.S. Gulf price. Since then, the Paranaguá quote has fallen below $10.50 per bu. CBOT and U.S. Gulf FOB quotes fell in parallel as euphoria over underwhelming Chinese purchases deflated and prospects for the upcoming Brazilian were strengthened by weather and planting progress. Paranaguá FOB fell marginally below U.S. Gulf quotes last week. Chinese estimates of CNF costs followed a similar pattern.  

Compiled from International Grains Council web site.

Beans from the upcoming Brazil harvest will likely begin pouring into China and appear in April-May Chinese customs data in a big way. As this blog previously reported, China is dumping some reserves into the domestic market to make way for imported U.S. beans (buyers are to take delivery by March-April). Chinese ports and crushers have some inventories and soy meal inventories are also high. China's markets for meal and oil are already glutted, but final demand will soften after the mid-February Chinese New Year holiday. That could shape up for another steep drop in prices next Spring.

2nd Auction Sells 323,000 tons of Imported Soybeans to Make Room for U.S. Purchases

Sinograin's second auction of imported soybeans on December 16 received a less enthusiastic response than the December 11 auction. The percentage of beans sold declined to 62% and the average price declined to RMB 3852 per metric ton. A cumulative 720,000 metric tons have been sold in the first two auctions. 

Chinese commentary attributes the auctions to Sinograin's need to relieve storage pressure as large volumes of U.S. soybeans purchased are expected to arrive. It also cites a need to generate funds for purchases of American soybeans. The second objective will be challenging if Sinograin has to pay off loans that financed purchase of these soybeans at peak prices 2-to-3 years ago.

The next auction is scheduled for December 19 when 550,000 metric tons will be offered. The auctions are composed predominantly of soybeans imported during years of much higher prices in 2022 and 2023. Auctions of imported soybeans held in March also featured soybeans from 2022-23, but auctions held earlier this year during summer months offered beans from last year and this year.

The first two auctions in December featured soybeans stored in Shandong Province and Tianjian Municipality. Next week's auction will offer a larger volume of soybeans stored in Hunan, Liaoning, and Sichuan Provinces. Fewer soybeans are being offered in Shandong and none in Tianjin.

China Auctions Reserves to Make Way for U.S. Soybean Purchases

The U.S. soybeans "China" has been buying over the last two months will apparently go directly into China's State reserve. Old beans are being auctioned off from reserves to make room for the new beans. The old beans are being offered to processors at bargain prices to give them some relief from negative margins as they await the arrival of another monster Brazilian crop that will drive market prices down again.

On December 11 China auctioned 512,500 metric tons of imported soybeans from its State reserves to make room for U.S. soybeans that China has been buying to fulfill its part of the U.S.-China trade agreement reached in October. This was the first in a series of auctions to be held over coming weeks to clear space for American soybeans China has been buying to fulfill the soybean purchase pledge made in late October. A second auction will be held tomorrow (December 16), offering another 513,884 metric tons. Chinese traders think the total amount auctioned over coming weeks will total about 4 million metric tons.

The December 11 auction sold 397,043 metric tons (77.5% of the beans offered) at an average price of RMB 3,935 (about $558) per ton. Some of the auctioned beans sold for prices as high as RMB 4,040 per ton. In comparison, the average price for imported soybeans reported by Shanghai Mysteel was RMB 4,220 in the first week of December. 

The auctioned beans were offered mostly in lots of about 10,000 to 45,000 metric tons scattered across 8 Chinese provinces. About half of the beans offered are located in Shandong Province and Tianjin Municipality. Others were in Liaoning, Sichuan, Hebei, Henan, Hunan and Zhejiang Provinces. Buyers must take delivery of the beans between December 20 and March 2026. 

The auction news suggests that newly purchased U.S. beans will be stockpiled in China's reserves. This is consistent with reports that nearly all Chinese purchases of U.S. soybeans have been made by COFCO--China's State-trading enterprise for grains and oilseeds--which imports on behalf of Sinograin. The 4-million-ton total expected for the auctions is close to the volume of sales of U.S. soybeans to China announced since late October. 

China's extra 10-percent tariff on U.S. beans still prevents them from being commercially viable for imports by private sector buyers. Presumably, COFCO/Sinograin imports are either exempt from the tariff or an accounting trick washes it out.

The displaced old beans released from reserves via auctions are being sold to crushing enterprises and feed mills. Sinograin has not revealed the origin (e.g. U.S. or Brazil) of the old reserves being released.

Sinograin lost money on the December 11 auction. The beans auctioned had been produced -- and presumably imported -- in 2022 and 2023 when soybean prices were at their peak. Based on customs data, I calculate that the average cost of importing the 512,500 soybeans offered for auction was $659 per ton, which exceeds the average sale price (at the current exchange rate) of $558 per ton. Thus, Sinograin sold 397,000 metric tons of soybeans at $101 less than they paid for them, a loss of over $40 million. Additionally, I estimate that interest cost on the beans could be $68 per ton and the storage cost could be $41 per ton, a total cost of $210 per metric ton. The total loss on the auction could have been at least $83 billion.

(It is unclear whether Sinograin paid tariffs (3%) and value added taxes (10%) on the imported soybeans it is releasing from reserves. It is also unclear what happens to the 112,500 tons of unsold beans -- if they failed to sell on December 11 at a bargain price, why would they sell in a future auction? If the unsold beans have to be written off, their acquisition cost of $74 million would be an additional loss.)

Sinograin will incur similar losses on the December 16 auction which will offer mostly 2022 beans (487,000 metric tons) and about 13,000 tons each from 2023 and 2024. The regional distribution of the Dec. 16 beans is similar to those offered last week. 

Chinese authorities are orchestrating these auctions and imports to satisfy crushing demand for beans while insulating the domestic soybean crop--now being marketed--from lower international prices. 

The Chinese market built up stockpiles of beans and meal during summer and early fall months when imports exceeded monthly crush. China's monthly soybean imports dropped from 12.9 mmt in September to 9.5 mmt in October, and 8.1 mmt in November. Over those same months the average cost of imported soybeans indicated by customs data ratcheted up from $447 per ton to $467 per ton.

Crush is still running at a torrid pace but now exceeds monthly imports. In November crush was estimated at 9 million metric tons (830,000 tons more than November last year). Crush is estimated to reach 8.6 million tons in December (up 400,000 tons from a year ago). Crushing margins appear to be negative, a problem that is exacerbated by increases in costs of imported soybeans. Thus, the auction of cheap beans from reserves supplements the shrinking flow of imports and constitutes a subsidy to keep crushers from seeing their negative margins grow even bigger.

Meanwhile, China's own soybean crop is being marketed. Authorities hope to nudge domestic soybean prices higher. The price of domestic beans exceeds the price of imported beans, so no auctions of reserves were held in main production areas of Heilongjiang, Jilin, and Inner Mongolia. They probably want to slow the pace of imports while the domestic crop is being marketed to keep the general level of prices up.

Market news reports say Chinese customs authorities are also preparing to slow-walk inspections of imported soybeans, extending the time needed for customs clearance to 25 days. Authorities previously delayed inspections during the first months of 2025, then returned to normal when Brazilian beans began arriving in April.

China 2025 Grain Output Data; Corn Accounts For Most of Increase

China produced another record grain crop of 714.88 million metric tons (mmt) in 2025, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. Production increased 8.38 mmt (+1.2%) from last year. As usual, corn accounted for most of the increase. The Bureau acknowledged the impact of mold on the Fall harvest but the statisticians have no way of measuring how much mold and resulting aflatoxins will impact the effective supply of corn this year.

Corn production was estimated at 301.235 mmt for 2025, and this year's 6.32 mmt increase in corn output accounted for most of the increase in grain output. Rice production (209 mmt in 2025) increased 1.5 mmt from last year. Wheat production (140 mmt) decreased slightly (-250,000 metric tons). 

Compiled from China National Bureau of Statistics.

Most of the increase in grain output was achieved by increasing average yields by 66 kg per hectare (up 1.1%) over the previous year. Grain area expanded 90,000 hectares (up 0.1%). There was a slight shift toward corn area (up 0.5%) but increases in corn yield (up 108 kg per hectare, +0.5%) accounted for most of the increase in corn output. The Bureau said that the increased area planted in corn (which has a relatively high yield) contributed to the increase in overall grain output. The Bureau noted that northeastern provinces (the main corn-producing area) contributed most of the increase in grain output.

The NBS corn output figure was even larger than the 300 mmt previously estimated by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs CASDE earlier this week. The NBS soybean output figure almost exactly matches the MARA estimate. 

The Bureau's lead agricultural statistician attributed the bumper harvest to "strict protection of grain area and food security responsibility by each region," "overcoming impacts of drought, floods and other natural disasters," and "no slacking off on grain production work." According to the Bureau, policy support mobilized farmers and local officials to keep a tight hold on grin production: 

• continuing to raise the support price for wheat and early rice, 
• improving each kind of subsidy policy, 
• expanding full-cost and income insurance, 
• launching a mechanism for grain deficit regions to compensate grain surplus regions, and 
• increased financial support for grain-producing counties. 
• Local authorities have strengthened protection of grain land, shifted the mix of crops, carried out land rectifications, increased the use of abandoned land and reclaimed unused land.

This blog previously discussed the impact on rains in September-October, showed images of fields and ears of corn, and discussed how the effective supply of corn has been reduced despite the "bumper harvest." The Bureau could not dodge this issue, and its report acknowledged that continuous heavy rains in the Huang-Huai Hai region of northern China caused molding that affected grain production "to a certain degree." The Bureau claimed that after taking into account the impact of mold on output fall-harvested grain output still grew by 8.2 mmt (+1.5%). The Bureau did not reveal the impact of mold on grain output, nor how they estimated it. The Bureau's surveys weigh grains cut from fields before harvest. The high degree of moisture would have increased the weight of crops. They have no way of knowing which fields were not harvested nor how much grain was dried or developed mold post-harvest.

Ecological Police to Make Rural China Beautiful Again

China is setting up an ecological police system (生态警务机制) that combines citizen surveillance with law enforcement and prosecution to crack down on "environmental and resource crimes" as a strategy for beautifying the countryside. 

The system is led by the Ministry of Public Security--highlighting the focus on law enforcement--in conjunction with the Ministry of Justice, the central government's planning ministry, and ministries responsible for environment, agriculture, water management, grasslands, forests, and the coast guard. The plan set forth in an "Opinion on Building an Ecological Police Mechanism" (关于加强生态警务机制建设的意见 which does not seem to be publicly available) aims to have the basic mechanism in place by 2027 and fully operational by 2035. 

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs said the policing system will severely punish environmental pollution, destruction of wild flora and fauna resources, damage to ancient and famous trees, illegal fishing, illegal mining of mineral resources, illegal extraction of river sand and gravel, and illegal occupation of agricultural land. The Opinion promises to investigate and coordinate large-scale strikes on professional violators, organized crime, and interregional exploitation schemes.

Building on experiments by localities over the last several years, localities will be encouraged to designate river and lake police chiefs (河湖警长), forest police chiefs (林警长), and ecological police chiefs (生态警长). Law enforcement officials will link up with officials responsible for watching fishing, mining, farming, forests, and other resources in "ecological policing joint operation centers" (生态警务联勤中心) and "joint operation workstations" (联勤工作站). Local prosecutors are included in the mechanism to ensure that perpetrators are prosecuted. 

"River-Lake Chief + Police Chief + Prosecutor" officials in Ganzhou, Jiangxi Province
gather for a photo-op

An example is a "River-Lake Chief + Police Chief + Prosecutor" (河湖长+警长+检察长) mechanism set up in Shicheng County, a district of Ganzhou Municipality in Jiangxi Province. A coordination meeting held 3 years ago was led by the county public security bureau and prosecutorial office with participation by the county branch of the environmental protection bureau, forestry bureau and river chiefs from each township in the county. The deputy director of the public security bureau reported that 7 cases of illegal fishing and 34 cases of illegal hunting of wildlife had been filed during the year, 17 people had been disciplined, and authorities had seized 100 wild animals, 100 kg of fish, and 300 hunting implements.

Farmland is one of the resources monitored with this system. This blog previously reported on "field captains" (田长, I previously translated as "field boss") established several years ago to monitor use of farmland. Some localities have implemented a "Field Captain + Prosecutor + Police Chief" system that relies on field captains to monitor land use, while public security and prosecutorial organs provide law enforcement powers to punish violators. The so-called "iron triangle" is meant to maintain rural stability, rule villages by law, and resolve land and ecological protection disputes and strengthen public security management.

River chiefs meet with prosecutors

A description of the "Field Captain + Police Chief + Prosecutor" system in Fangcheng, Guangxi Province said work focused on farmland protection, crackdowns on illegal mining, and restoration of abandoned mines. In Liaoning Province's Anshan City the system was set up to detect and punish shoddy construction of "high standard fields." In Zhaoqing, Guangdong Province the system led to the arrest of people who converted farmland to fish ponds. 

It is unlikely that this system will work since it requires cooperation and coordination among 10 different organizations as well as coordination between rural, municipal and provincial officials. The ratio of organizational effort to benefits for officials seems high. One thing it does demonstrate is that China's vague and incomplete assignment of property rights inevitably leads to ever-increasing degrees of surveillance and application of force by the State. 

Mold is Tightening China's Corn Market

This month Chinese statisticians will probably report a record 2025 corn crop, but a significant portion of the harvest is unusable. Continuous heavy rain during September and October flooded fields in some of the leading production areas of the North China Plain region, preventing equipment from harvesting some fields and caused mold and sprouting on corn that was harvested. While Chinese news media have been showing photos of giant corn drying facilities to allay concerns about mold, social media showed some farmers scrubbing corn cobs to remove mold. A screenshot from another Chinese video below shows an individual spraying piles of corn to kill mold.

Farmer attempts to scrub mold off corn cobs.

Spraying corn to kill mold

China's corn futures prices dropped 4.6% during September and early October following what appeared to be another "bumper harvest." News of the impact of heavy rains on the north China corn crop spread in mid-October, and the price rose 7.3% from late October to early December. 

Daily closing prices on Dalian Commodity Exchange.

The impacts of mold are gradually filtering into various segments of China's corn market. Tightness first showed up in regions of North China like Shandong Province that were heavily impacted by rains. Prices did not fall steeply after harvest in Shandong. In North China, according to some reports 70% of the corn offered on the market is high in moisture and unusable for animal feed. Meanwhile, northeastern provinces Jilin and Heilongjiang had a bumper corn harvest with few quality problems. Jilin and Heilongjiang prices did fall after harvest in October, although the decline was brief as prices turned up in November. Now some feed mills in North China are purchasing local wheat or high-quality corn from the Northeast to augment the limited supply of high-quality corn. The interregional movement of corn, however, has been impeded by tight supplies of rail cars and snowfall. There is some speculation that increased sales by northeastern farmers at the end of December could ease upward pressure on prices.

Source: China National Grain and Oils Information Center, reported by FAO GIEWS database.

Relatively soft final demand also eases upward pressure on corn prices. Southern feed companies--seeing signs of a downturn in the livestock sector--are cautious in building up inventories. Still, some feed companies are reportedly seeking lower-priced alternative grains and have begun inquiring about imported barley and sorghum. A rebound in imports of feed grains in Q1 2026 is possible.

The downturn in Chinese corn prices this year was less pronounced and briefer than it was a year ago during the 2024 harvest. Last year's plunging prices continued a lengthy decline in Chinese corn prices that began in 2023 and surely alarmed Chinese officials who constantly fret over potential rural unrest and collapse in grain output. Grain imports were abruptly shut down in August 2024. With minimal imports, Chinese corn prices rebounded early this year as the domestic marketing season passed its peak. Chinese officials may be happy that this year's rains prevented corn prices from falling as far as last year.  

Monthly averages through November 2025

Chinese officials never announced a tightening of corn import controls. Just before grain imports suddenly plunged in August last year an Economic Daily commentator whose articles echo official grain policy carefully explained how the tariff rate quota system limits imports of grains and asserted that the country needed to do a good job on storing and importing grain in order to strengthen prices for farmers. China's corn imports during the first 10 months of 2025 are down about 90% from a year earlier and lower than at any time this decade. China's feedtrade.com.cn reports that imported grains still have a price advantage in southern Chinese ports, but it also reports that stocks of imported grain are adequate.

China customs data, calendar years.

China's monthly imports of corn this year have been erratic from all suppliers except Russia which has supplied corn to China in 9 of 10 months. Top suppliers of China's corn this year are Brazil (540,000mt), Russia (333,000mt), Ukraine (231,000mt), and Myanmar (144,000mt). China has only imported 20,000 mt of corn from the U.S. in 2025, but this is not a concern since USDA export inspections indicate that U.S. corn exports for the current market year are on a record pace and about 7.9 million metric tons ahead of last year.

Are China's low and erratic feed grain imports in 2025 a return to normal for China? Or was the sustained import of 40-to-50 million metric tons annually during 2021-24 the "normal" that will be restored in the future?

China Worries Unemployed Migrants Will be Trapped in the Countryside

China's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (MARA) ordered officials to prevent unemployed rural migrants from becoming stranded in their hometowns. This order--alongside reports that village officials told returning migrants to stay away--was interpreted by many as a sign that China's sinking economy is stoking fears of rural unrest. Unemployed migrants milling around in the countryside are a nightmare for stability-obsessed officials. 

Chinese netizens noticed an order to prevent large numbers of returning migrants from becoming stranded in their hometowns (防止形成规模性返乡滞乡) in an article describing a MARA meeting held November 13, 2025 in an ethnic minority area in Yunnan Province focusing on training rural people in handicrafts as a strategy for addressing rural poverty (i.e. selling pots, baskets, and articles of clothing to generate income in remote areas populated by ethnic minorities). The final paragraph of the article published in Yunnan news media called for implementing an action plan to create jobs in the countryside to prevent jobless rural migrants from lingering in the countryside and returning to poverty. Employment assistance was also ordered for key counties targeted for revitalization, for areas where poor people have been resettled, and for disaster-stricken counties.

--update: The November 13 meeting in Yunnan was convened by a MARA vice minister. On November 25--the day of this blog post--Minister of Agriculture and Rural Affairs Han Jun and Yunnan Governor Wang Yubo met to discuss rural issues, including solidifying results of poverty alleviation and establishing a normalized mechanism for preventing large scale relapsing of areas into poverty. 

There are anecdotal reports that laid-off factory workers are returning to their rural hometowns on a large scale. For example, a short video on China's Douyin platform showed workers in a garment manufacturing district of Guangzhou boarding a bus, claiming that the workers were laid off and have no choice but to return to their home in Hubei Province.

Douyin video comments that workers are returning well before
the customary peak period that begins in December ahead of
the Lunar New Year holidays.

Another factoid circulating on the Chinese social media is a photo that claims to show a meeting where officials discussed using police to round up returned unmarried migrants and subject them to self-criticism and reeducation. Young, unmarried unemployed people are especially prone to create unrest--hence the focus on single returned migrants. Some returning migrants claim to have been prevented from returning home or urged to return to urban jobs. Chinese news media claimed that the photo was faked with photoshop and produced an unnamed worker in a Guizhou village who denied that the meeting took place. 

Photo purportedly of a meeting discussing "how to
deal with returned unmarried migrants"

Another article in State media argued that the order to "prevent large scale return to rural areas" was taken out of context and claimed officials are working to promote rural employment and prevent recurrence of poverty. 

There are many indications that factories are closing, and many workers have not been paid. Exports declined unexpectedly in October. The extent of the impact on migrant workers is hidden by Chinese officials while the veracity of anecdotal evidence is uncertain. China's official data reported last month that the number of rural migrants at the end of Q3 2025 was up 0.9% year-over-year and monthly earnings were up 2.4%. While these numbers are not that alarming in isolation, they are low compared to the go-go years. Growth in the migrant workforce has been erratic since 2015 when China had a stock market meltdown, and the property market bubble began to deflate. Official data show Q3 2025's 0.9% year-on-year growth in migrants is the lowest non-pandemic growth since 2018.

 

Calculated from National Bureau of Statistics.

China's countryside has been a reservoir of unskilled labor since the 1950s. Rural people living in poverty could easily be enticed to staff factories during boom times and sent back home during downturns. The household registration (hukou) system was installed to prevent rural migrants from settling permanently in cities, and the rural land system gave each family plots of land to tie them to their home village. This system gave rural migrants a means of subsistence when not needed in factories or construction sites and ensured they would not stay in cities to form urban slums. 

Rural China's role as a sponge to soak up excess labor in a downturn is no longer viable. Many rural migrants have no experience farming, and some have no land. Authorities have encouraged farm mechanization and turned over an increasing share of farming resources to companies. During earlier economic slowdowns news media ran articles inspiring rural women returning from factory work to take up hog farming. This is impossible now, because capital requirements and regulatory measures raise the threshold, and most individually run hog farms are losing money this year. Authorities are also coping with the problem of unemployed college graduates, as evidenced by a separate plan to encourage urban youth to start businesses in the countryside. 

In February 2025 State media encouraged college graduates and white-collar workers
to return to their villages to start live-streaming sales businesses. 

In a commentary on the topic Chinese news media personality Hu Xijin praised MARA's efforts at rural job creation, but he argued that only cities can create enough jobs to prevent returned migrants from becoming stranded in the countryside. Hu admonished cities for focusing on creating a modern and beautiful appearance while neglecting their responsibility to create jobs for "the vast rural workforce." 

A Chinese commentary on Reddit criticized the Chinese Communist Party's approach to the unemployed migrant issue by comparing it to addressing diarrhea by plugging the buttocks with tape and declaring the problem to be solved. The Reddit commentator surmised that the Party avoids tackling the root cause because it might expose the shortcomings of the system and raise questions about the "emperor's" responsibility.