Dim Sums: Agricultural Markets in China

Soybean shipments from Brazil are suddenly in limbo because Chinese customs inspectors forced their Brazilian counterparts to adopt a new phytosanitary control system. The disruption comes during Brazil's peak month for soybean shipments bound for China. Is the timing coincidental, or is it another attempt to use phytosanitary concerns to "manage" the flow of imports? Earlier this week, a  Latin American Cargill executive told a Reuters correspondent that Brazilian inspectors had adopted a new inspection system this month. Cargill had stopped buying Brazilian soybeans for shipment to China until they could figure out how to work with the new system. News media have reported that Brazil's agriculture ministry had tightened inspections at the behest of Chinese customs regulators based on reports that inspectors they found problems such as presence of insects, beans coated with pesticides or fungicides, weed seeds, and heat damage in Brazilian beans arriving at the Chin...

Chinese state media announced results of last year's crackdown on fraudulent meat and vegetable oil conducted by China's State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR). The news issued during the "two session" political meetings in Beijing is surely meant to reassure citizens outraged by rampant reports of premium cooking oil and lamb barbecue diluted with cheap substitutes. A deeper dive reveals that it's impractical to completely eliminate food fraud. According to reports in State media , market regulators held a campaign in 2025 to address public concerns about adulteration, counterfeiting and false labeling of meat products and vegetable oils. During the campaign regulators reportedly inspected 4.55 million meat and cooking oil products across the country, found 461,200 problems, closed 4,297 illegal online stores and accounts, and ordered platforms to delete over 11,000 pieces of false or misleading information. They punished 1708 people, assessed fines of...

China's transition to a more protein-rich diet is evident in food consumption data from its official national household survey. Pork continues to rule the roost despite growth in egg and poultry consumption, and more Chinese consumers now know where to find the beef. Since the 1950s China's National Bureau of Statistics has conducted a household survey of income and expenditure that included per capita consumption/purchases of foods. The household survey historically had some flaws in the sampling (some were corrected in the 2013 overhaul) and it excludes food consumed in restaurants, cafeterias, and banquets, but we'll set those aside for now. The data reflect the key trend driving Chinese food markets: consumption of animal protein is growing while consumption of carbohydrates like rice, flour, buns and noodles is dropping. The changes from 2013 to 2024 indicate a neat symmetry between the two:  Per capita purchases of cereal grains shrank from 138.9 kg to 110.6 kg (-28.3...

One of China's top 2 soybean crushers reported a rebound in profits during 2025 despite the trade war that choked off imports of U.S. soybeans for most of the year. However, the profit report belies a gloomy outlook for China's crushing industry as it awaits another deluge of Brazilian soybeans this Spring. Arawana Holdings Co. Ltd. (known in China as Yihai Kerry) reported a 26% increase in profits in a preliminary report of its 2025 financial performance . Arawana cited improved soybean crushing margins due to strong downstream demand for its soybean meal products and reduced soybean costs during the first 3 quarters of 2025. The report said strong demand for soybean meal was driven by its high cost-effectiveness in feed formulations (thus undermining agricultural officials' plans to eliminate soybean meal from feed formulations). Margins were also aided by ample South American supplies that drove down soybean prices and lowered raw material costs. The report said procurem...

The Chinese Communist Party relies on statistics-based rankings to demonstrate success and to promote officials, creating incentives to falsify statistics from bottom to top. The Party's head-scratching campaign to address "formalism" appears to offer no real solution and suggests the Party may be collapsing in on itself.  Last week China's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs held a meetin g to prod Party officials to correct performance evaluation incentives that generate endless meetings, phony statistics, and reams of documents that distract grassroots officials from achieving practical results in agricultural and rural development work. This is part of a years-long campaign to eliminate so-called "formalism" (形式主义) that undermines the effectiveness of local Party officials and therefore diminishes the citizens' support. This year's campaign against formalism is said to be linked to the 15th five-year plan, but it may also be motivated by th...

China's customs authorities reported rejecting 14 batches of rapeseed oil from Kazakhstan in December 2025 due to detection of genetically modified material in the shipments. The report said the rejected shipments totaling 811 metric tons had been purchased by Xiamen Agricultural Products Trading Company located on China's southeastern coast. The shipments were rejected by Chinese customs authorities in the Urumqi customs region that borders Kazakhstan.  According to news from Kazakhstan  this month, Chinese officials put 3 Kazakh plants on a blacklist, 2 had suspended operations, and 5 were on the brink of closure. One of the idled plants reportedly had Chinese ownership. A Kazakh industry official reported that the China market is vital to the industry's development strategy.  The Kazakh article suggests there are disputes over the detections of GMOs: "Chinese importers periodically detect GMs in rapeseed oil shipments and return the cargo, although Kazakh laborator...