Dim Sums: Agricultural Markets in China

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...

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...