Dim Sums: Agricultural Markets in China

Hog prices have been below break-even for most of this year, and China's hog industry needs to shed production capacity to match supply with shrinking demand. Hog prices slid from over RMB20 per kg in August 2024 to RMB10 from April-June 2026. Production capacity appears to have started shrinking this year, but the path to a smaller hog industry in China is still unclear. There was a modest rebound in hog prices during the summer months, but it appears to be a seasonal blip. Market commentaries are not optimistic about a sustained recovery in prices. A counter in a Suzhou supermarket selling cheap pork from national reserves For the last 2 years Chinese government officials have been calling on giant hog producing companies to cut back on production. Investor reports for H1 2026 released in recent weeks appear to show that 8 big farming companies reducing their sow inventories by a combined 723,800 head. That amounts to 28% of the year-over-year reduction in national sow numbers of...

Twenty of China's leading hog producers posted a combined loss of 23.3 billion yuan (close to $3.5 billion at the current exchange rate) in the first half of 2026, according to a Chinese journalist's compilation of financial results released by the publicly listed companies. (The results did not include privately held Twins Group--last year's number 3 producer.) Partial list of company results. These companies had posted substantial profits last year. The article attributed the poor 2026 results to the most severe downturn in the hog industry in the last 10 years which led to a 20.5% year-over-year drop in live pig prices during H1 2026. The hog-grain price ratio was below 5:1 throughout most of January-June, causing deep, widespread financial losses.  Muyuan Foods was the top hog producer, with sales of 39.6 million pigs. Muyuan recorded a net loss of 6.078 billion yuan on revenue of 59.41 billion yuan, but its cash balance of 16.5 billion yuan enabled the company to oper...

China has abruptly flipped from net importer to net exporter of chicken since 2023, and the trend continues in 2026. This development has been noted in the poultry annual issued by USDA's China office , by a Chinese article highlighting the USDA report , and by another Chinese article posted in July. The simultaneous surge in Chinese chicken exports and plummeting imports is dramatic when compared to historical performance. USDA data show no trend in China's exports of chicken meat until 2023 when they suddenly began booming and nearly doubled by 2025. USDA projects another rise in exports in 2026. Back in 2020 China had become a net importer of chicken when imports spiked due to reopening of the market to U.S. product after an HPAI outbreak, the Phase One trade agreement with the U.S., and substitution of poultry for pork during the 2019-20 pork shortage caused by a Chinese African swine fever epidemic. China's chicken imports remained historically high until 2023. But sin...

China's July 2026 soybean imports totaled 11.48 million metric tons (mmt), down modestly from 11.66 mmt a year earlier. So far China has imported 61.63 mmt for the calendar year, slightly ahead of 61.05 mmt a year ago.  China customs data. Brazil was the top supplier of China's July soybean imports, with 9.78 mmt. That was down from 10.39 mmt in July last year. Imports from the United States totaled 1.11 mmt, up from 421,000 mt a year ago. USDA export sales data indicate China has bought about 12.5 mmt of U.S. soybeans in 2025--surpassing the amount promised at the Busan South Korea summit. From January to June 10.4 mmt of U.S. soybeans have arrived in China--that suggests there are still about 2 mmt of U.S. soybeans purchased by China this year that have yet to clear customs in China. Argentina returned as a supplier in July with 485,752 mt arriving in China. Other sources of China's July soybean imports included Uruguay (198,000 mt), Canada (52,000 mt), Ukraine (6,288 mt)...

"Poultry farming is no longer about merely raising chickens, but about operating a modern, equipment- and technology-intensive factory." This quote from a MySteel commentary on the expansion of egg-laying capacity  earlier this month is the leading edge of a factory-style (工厂化) overhaul of farming underway at China's grass roots as part of Xi Jinping's "high-quality development" push. The rapid expansion of production capacity in a saturated egg market drives down prices, so sustainability relies on pushing small scale producers out of the market. Much of the expansion is in regions that lack feed resources, perpetuating China's reliance on imported feed grains and soybeans. Between 2023 and 2026 at least 123 new laying hen projects representing 260 million birds were signed, initiated or brought online in China. The expansion peaked with 73 new projects launched in 2024. A crash in egg prices during 2025 did not stop the expansion, as 12 new projects we...

Chinese wheat prices have been falling since the harvest began in May. In Henan Province 262 districts have launched procurement at minimum prices to stop the slide in market prices. The support price program has also been launched in Anhui Province (91 districts), Hebei (46 districts), Jiangsu (14 districts), and Shandong (4 districts), with 6 million metric tons procured. Last year 16.4 mmt of wheat was procured at minimum prices.  China Administration of Food and Commodity Reserves. Flour prices have also been declining since June, suggesting weak downstream demand. Wholesale prices from China Administration of Food and Commodity Reserves. Chinese corn prices have also been falling since May, in part because declining wheat prices have prompted feed mills to substitute wheat for corn. Availability of other substitutes and idling of some corn processing plants due to weak downstream demand also had a depressive effect on corn prices. Some corn market commentators speculate that ...