Dim Sums: Agricultural Markets in China

China committed to buy $17 billion of non-soybean U.S. agricultural products over the next 3 years according to a Fact Sheet released by the White House  summarizing commitments made during Trumps visit to Beijing last week. These purchases are in addition to China's soybean purchase commitments made in October 2025 to buy 12 million metric tons (mmt) of soybeans in 2025 and 25 mmt annually during 2026-28. China renewed expired approvals for 400 U.S. beef exporting facilities and agreed to resume imports of poultry from U.S. States free of highly pathogenic avian influenza.  The recent history of U.S. agricultural exports to China shows that the $17 billion value of non-soybean exports was exceeded during 2021 and 2022, when the "Phase One" agreement was in force and high commodity prices inflated the value of farm trade (but China did not meet the Phase One targets). Non-soy ag exports have fallen short of $17 billion since 2023. Last year, during the 2025 trad...

Last month this blog reported hockey-stick Chinese price increases for certain industrial commodities  since the Iran war began in late February that were as high as 40-to-77% for plastics, fuel, and chemicals. Gasoline and diesel prices eased somewhat during April, but elevated prices for sulphuric acid, liquified natural gas, and lithium persisted into the first 10 days of May. The spike in polyester prices has stimulated a rebound in cotton use, but agricultural prices are mostly insulated from the crisis so far. China's April 2026 PPI  shows a modest trend of rising prices that seems to have turned around the deflationary tendency that plagued the Chinese economy last year. The average price for industrial raw materials rose 1.2% in March 2026 and 2.1% in April. These were the first month-on-month increases exceeding 1% in the past year. A year ago at this time the raw material price index was declining--it was down -0.7% between March and April 2025.  An update of pr...

China has fired two agriculture ministers over the past two years, one of whom got a death sentence. This appears to be the routine discovery of bad apples in the system, but it reflects the desperation of Chinese leaders to restore confidence in the Party's leadership.  Much like a religious revival, new Agriculture Minister Zhang Zhu's first meeting with employees two days after being appointed urged communist party members to "forge their collective will and soul," translate their beliefs into collective actions, promptly correct any deviations, and address malpractices and corruption issues that directly affect the public, demonstrating "unwavering loyalty to the Party." This is the latest in a series of meetings held this year to lecture communist cadres about studying Xi Jinping thought, giving up corruption and lax work attitudes, and pursuing their jobs with sincerity. These meetings reflect the Party's worries that its hold on the countryside i...

China imported 8.5 million metric tons of soybeans during April 2026, more than double the 4 mmt imported during March. The April total was 2.4 mmt ahead of imports in April last year. Detailed April import data have not been released yet. During March 2026 China imported 1.85 mmt from the U.S., 1.4 mmt from Brazil, 400,000 mt from Argentina, and 247,500 mt from Russia. The volume arriving from Brazil is set to balloon in coming months.  China customs administration. Brazil's exports to China have been ramping up as this year's soybean crop--estimated by USDA to be a record-breaking 180 mmt--makes its way to ports. Brazil's soybean exports to China were a record-high 11.58 mmt during April. The April volume was up about 1.6 mmt from March. Some March shipments may have been delayed to April by stringent port inspections that caused a backlog of cargoes--the inspection issue at both Brazilian and Chinese ports apparently has been cleared up. Exports to China for 2026 match l...

China's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has massively overstated income growth for years. In 2025, NBS reported that China's GDP and household income both grew 5.0%. Another obscure data item reported by the Bureau showed that the monthly earnings of employed rural people grew just 2.3%, less than half the growth in GDP. This number, buried in an obscure report on rural migrants , is also overstated and ignores unpaid wages, one of the chief drivers of protests and sabotage in China last year. Drilling down into China's household income data report to ensure an apples-to-apples comparison shows an even bigger discrepancy. Rural household income from wages grew 6.1% in 2025. That's more than double the 2.3% growth in earnings by rural migrants. (Urban households' wage income grew 4.1%.) China's National Bureau of Statistics. The history of monthly earnings from the rural migrant survey shows that growth in wages for rural migrants--who staff the construction...

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...