Dim Sums: Agricultural Markets in China

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...

In a terse online report China acknowledged that a South African serotype of foot-and-mouth disease has entered the country for the first time. The report of 2 widely separated outbreaks occurring simultaneously is implausible, and emergency distribution of vaccines suggests a much wider spread. The inexplicable jump of the virus to China from halfway across the world, under-reporting of outbreaks, and silence from State media bear close similarity to African swine fever's entry to China 8 years ago.    On March 28, 2026 China's agriculture ministry reported two outbreaks of the SAT1 (Southern Africa Type 1) serotype of foot and mouth disease in two remote locations: Yining County of Yili Prefecture in Xinjiang and in Gulang County of Gansu Provnce. The report said that 142 of 513 cattle at a market in Yining County were sickened by the disease. At a farm in Gulang County 77 of 5716 cattle were sickened. The report did not say when the outbreaks occurred. Both outbreaks were ...

The Iran war has hit Chinese prices of chemicals and fuel hard, but most prices -- including farm prices and fertilizer -- have risen at a modest pace of 5% or less since the war began in late February. Pesticide prices have shot up in sync with the 30-to-40% increases in other chemical prices.  The impact of the Iran war is hard to discern from China's official price reports, but they indicate impacts are concentrated on fuel. The March CPI was up 1% year-over-year, but it fell 0.7% between February and March. Consumer prices for energy used for transportation stood out from all other categories with an increase of 10% in March. Producer price deflation was reversed into modest inflation. The March PPI report showed ex-factory prices rose 0.5% in March after falling 0.9% in February. Producer prices for gasoline and natural gas stood out with a 15.8% increase in March, while producer prices for consumer items were down slightly. We can discern a more precise picture of the impac...