Dim Sums: Agricultural Markets in China

China's beef imports rebounded in Q1 2026 despite a special safeguard duty mechanism that took effect January 2026. Beef prices in China are so high that beef from Brazil--the dominant supplier of imports--might still be competitive in the Chinese market even if extra safeguard duties are applied later this year. According to China's customs administration beef imports for January-March 2026 totaled 870,000 metric tons, up 27.5% from the same period in 2025 (this appears to exclude beef offal--its inclusion would raise the total to 890,000 metric tons).  A tabulation of monthly data shows that January and February 2026 imports were about 35% higher than year-earlier imports, while March imports were up 15% year-over-year. Imports had peaked in September 2025 and dropped during Q4 2025 before rebounding this year. China customs data, HS 0201, 0202, 020620. In January 2026 China announced a safeguard mechanism for 2026-28 that assesses an extra duty of 55% on beef imports from su...

China's new strategy is for giant pig farms to sell carbon credits to finance their waste treatment facilities. Western environmental groups have questioned whether a surge of Chinese pig farms offering to sell carbon credits to foreign buyers really needed the credits to build biogas facilities, so China has created its own carbon-trading mechanism for pig farms with relaxed standards. Since the Chinese carbon market is only for large scale CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations), Chinese news media are assuring the public that industrialized farms are "green" too. A pig farm operated by Muyuan Foods. The dark rectangle in the back is the manure collection lagoon. Source: Xinhua News Agency. In December 2025 China's Ministries of Environment and Agriculture jointly issued a methodology for China's Certified Voluntary Emission Reduction (CCER) covering utilization of biogas from livestock manure at large-scale pig farms . According to the document large-sca...

China's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (MARA) announced today that Zhang Zhu is the new Communist Party secretary of MARA. Zhang replaces Han Jun who had been Party Secretary and Ministry of MARA for less than 2 years. The announcement consisted of a single sentence. In 2024, Han Jun had replaced Tang Renjian who served 2020-24 before being ousted and given a delayed death sentence last year for bribery.  The reason for Han Jun's departure has not been revealed, but an x.com post suggests Han's wife has business connections with the wife of Ma Xingrui, a top leader in China's Communist Party who was put under investigation earlier this month.  The MARA web site had gone eerily quiet during March when a series of posts described meetings where agricultural officials were ordered to study Xi Jinping's thoughts and received warnings about corruption and graft and prioritizing political achievements. Han Jun had last been featured on the MARA web site 10 da...

China's State-owned food conglomerate COFCO plans to build the largest soybean processing plant in Brazil , according to an announcement by the company. This is just one piece of a soybean crushing capacity expansion taking place across China, the U.S. and Brazil.  COFCO will more than double capacity of its plant in Rondonópolis from its current 4,500 metric tons per day to about 10,000 metric tons. The facility will be capable of processing 1.35 million metric tons of soybeans annually, to produce soybean oil, meal and 350,000 metric tons of biodiesel. The project is expected to cost about US$400 million and will be complete in 2028.  The plant is located at Rondonópolis, an agribusiness hub in Brazil's west central soybean producing region. According to the Chinese article describing the project, the expansion of crushing capacity in Brazil is expected to allow COFCO to exert greater control over the flow of soy products entering Asian markets, enhance the value of it expor...

Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus all ban production of genetically modified crops, yet Chinese customs inspectors have been rejecting shipments of vegetable oil from these countries due to detection of GMOs. China's detections of GMOs in imported food shipments have increased sharply this year. During the first 3 months of 2026, Chinese customs reported rejecting 88 shipments totaling 6,271 metric tons for detection of unauthorized GMOS. The rejection count was up from 38 shipments in all of 2025, and 10 in 2024. China reported 1-to-4 GMO rejections annually before 2024. Compilation of food import rejection reports from China customs administration website. Rapeseed oil comprised 74 of the 88 rejections this year. The rejected rapeseed oil came mainly from Kazakhstan (59 rejections) and Russia (13 rejections). Two other shipments of rejected rapeseed oil had been shipped from Belarus and Ukraine. Other GMO rejections announced by China so far this year included flour products from Ja...

China's GDP grew 5% year over year in Q1 2026, according to a National Bureau of Statistics report that provided its invariably upbeat rundown of first quarter economic data. Primary sector GDP--which includes agriculture--grew 3.8%. In March 2026 the urban unemployment rate was reported to be 5.4% while the rate for rural migrants was 5.7%.  The Bureau's Q1 2026 report focusing on the agricultural economy led off with a claim that the winter wheat crop has overcome the impacts of last Fall's heavy rains that seriously impeded planting of the crop. The Bureau's agricultural statistician claimed that the area planted in winter wheat is stable and the crop's condition has improved due to warm weather, adequate rainfall and soil moisture this Spring. The Bureau claimed that the crop has been bolstered by measures orders issued to local officials to fertilize wheat seedlings and farmers were encouraged by an increase in the minimum price for wheat (in fact, the minimu...