Dim Sums: Agricultural Markets in China

China's beef imports during April and May 2026 were about equal to year-earlier volumes, but behind the pace set during January-February. A rebound in shipments by the main supplier--Brazil--suggests that China's beef imports will rebound as well in coming months.  HS 0201, 0202. China Customs Data. Imports in the categories specified for China's special safeguard duty program totaled 1.28 million metric tons for January-May 2026, up about 200,000 metric tons from the same period in 2025. Imports primarily consisted of over 1 million metric tons of frozen boneless beef (HS 020230), the category that also accounted for essentially all of the year-over-year increase. Imports of offal, beef fat, canned and prepared beef--not subject to safeguard quotas or duties--totaled 71,000 metric tons, and they were nearly double the quantity from a year earlier.  China's commerce ministry announced that beef imports from Australia had reached 90% of their quota by June 1. The minist...

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 commerce officials blamed surging imports for a decline in beef prices to justify "safeguard" tariffs on imported beef announced last week . In fact, gyrations in Chinese beef prices were due to destabilizing events in China's own market.  Chinese officials suggested that a rising trend in beef imports drove down beef prices during 2019-2024. In fact, 2019-24 was a 6-year-long beef bubble that inflated and then popped. The phony "analysis" by China's Commerce Ministry ignored the inverted-U-shaped pattern of prices: the average price of beef reported by China's Ag Ministry rose 20% from RMB 73.20 per KG in 2024 to a peak of RMB 87.59 in 2022. Then the price fell 18% to RMB 71.89 in 2024. During 2019-2022 China's beef imports AND its domestic prices both increased, undermining the claim that rising imports caused prices to fall. Beef imports then stabilized between 2022 and 2024. Prices declined sharply in 2024, but the increase in imports...

China will investigate impacts of imported beef on the Chinese industry to determine whether safeguard measures to protect the domestic beef industry from imports are justified, according to an announcement by the Ministry of Commerce on December 27 .  China's national livestock industry association and 9 provincial associations submitted an 81-page application for the investigation that claims the increased volume of beef imports since 2019 has harmed the Chinese beef industry.  The Commerce Ministry's announcement cites a 64.93% increase in beef imports from 2019 to 2023 and an increase in imports' share of the Chinese beef market from 20.55% in 2019 to 30.9% in the first half of 2024 to justify the investigation. The announcement claims that "there is a causal relationship between the increase in import volume and serious damage to China's domestic industry.  An explanation of the investigation posted by The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs reports tha...

Last week's meeting of the standing committee of China's State Council called for relief policies to help beef and dairy farmers who are in financial straits . According to a report on the meeting cattle and sheep farms have seen shrinking profits due to falling prices and rising costs. The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (MARA) has organized several meetings since August to address dairy and beef issues. An August 21 meeting concluded that the industry faces a dire situation with large losses for farmers and companies due to poor dairy and beef prices and pressure from imports.  MARA data indicate that China's beef prices have been on a downward trend over the past two years. The average September 2024 price is down 23 percent since the decline began in January 2023. The current average beef price is about the same as in 2019. Source: Wholesale price data compiled from China's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs. China's milk prices have been on a s...

 The 5-year plan for China's livestock dials down expectations for the country's meat production prospects. While the plan acknowledges that China's consumers are demanding more and higher quality meat, the plan sets modest production goals. It focuses on scaling-up farms, becoming self-sufficient in producing breeding stock, stabilizing supply, disease prevention, reducing the industry's environmental footprint, filling a shortfall in fodder for ruminants, and creating farm-industry links.  The plan released by China's agriculture ministry in December 2021 set an 89-million-metric-ton target for meat production in 2025. That's an increase from the 76.4 mmt reported in 2020, but it's only fractionally higher than China's peak meat output in 2014. The 2020-25 increase represents mainly a recovery of swine production from its disease-impacted dip in 2019-20. IF these numbers are correct, China will have had basically no net growth in meat output for a dec...

Livestock should have the same status as grain in China's food security efforts, according to an Economic Daily article published last week. The article--which cited difficulties maintaining meat supplies, "social resistance" to high prices, and great pressure from imported meat--was reposted on numerous state-controlled news media sites, indicating it was a message from the propaganda gnomes. The Economic Daily article observed that beef and mutton supplies have not kept up with growing demand. The article cited a  5-year action program for developing beef and mutton production issued by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (MARA) as an important new effort to ensure meat supplies and tamp down meat price fluctuations. The MARA "action program" document blames a poor industry base, long production cycle, and outdated production methods for failing to keep up with growing consumer demand for beef and mutton.  An assessment by the Chinese Academy of ...

Imported meat is making inroads in the Chinese market, pitting the interests of consumers against those of producers--no longer one and the same. Nevertheless, getting meat into China appears to be a risky game, given a strategy of tightening and loosening import procedures based on domestic market conditions. A July article in the Guangzhou Daily observed that the rising import of meats is generally welcomed by consumers, but is greeted with resentment by people in the domestic meat industry. The Guangzhou Daily reporter visited supermarkets to get the views of consumers and managers on imported meat. The manager of one store told him sales were up 20%-40% so far this year. Most of the business is relatively low-priced cuts of Australian beef. Sales of high-end beef--128 yuan for the most expensive T-bone--are increasing as fast. Another manager told the reporter that he once tried selling imported beef in 2008-09, but it didn't last long. Since the end of 2013, however, s...

A 2013 beef market report by the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) noted that Chinese beef prices rose 30 percent during 2013 and have tripled since 2002. Soaring prices and a surge of imports during 2013 were due to tight supplies combined with flourishing demand. At the end of December 2013, the average price in beef-producing provinces was 57 yuan per kg (about $4.23/lb) and the price in southeastern provinces was over 70 yuan ($5.20/lb). Since then, prices have gradually fallen but remain at a high level. Compared with pork prices--blamed as a chief cause of inflation in past years--beef prices have shown much stronger upward momentum since 2011 (see chart).   Source: China Ministry of Agriculture data analyzed by dimsums.blogspot.com. According to official statistics, China’s beef output increased 1.7% during 2013 to reach 6.73 million metric tons. However, some doubt the accuracy of the numbers. An Economic Reference News art...

An Economic Daily report says tight beef supplies in China and rising consumption add up to heated competition for cattle and rising prices. Imported beef is now relatively cheap and filling the gap between supply and demand. In the second week of January 2014, the average price of beef in 480 markets monitored by the Ministry of Agriculture was up 16.2 percent from a year earlier. The price has gone up 346 percent since 2000, "reflecting the country's bleak beef supply" said the paper. Graphic from Economic Daily: "Beef price rise reflects beef cattle supply situation" A beef industry official said consumption of beef in China has been rising 2.3 percent per year [that would be a third of the rate of income growth and less than a fourth of the GDP growth rate] while supply of beef has dropped from 7.12 million metric tons (mmt) in 2010 to 6.62 mmt in 2012 [official statistics say beef output grew marginally from 6.5 to 6.6 mmt during those years]. Th...

Beef prices in China are rising skyward, but the high prices are not encouraging farmers to raise more cattle. According to the Ministry of Agriculture beef prices are up over 20 percent and many cities have beef prices exceeding 30 yuan/500g (about $4.30/lb.) The price of beef is double the price of pork and triple the price of chicken. Behind the rising beef prices is an exodus of farmers from the cattle industry. A farmer in Hebei Province named Shi has been raising cattle since 2003. He recalls a golden period during 2005-06 when you could earn 600 yuan per head when the price of a calf was 3.5 yuan/500g. But he says the cattle industry has been less lucrative since 2007 due to rising feed prices and better earning opportunities working off-farm. Mr. Shi says the price of a calf is now 15 yuan/500g and it costs 6000 yuan to buy one. Raising a calf half a year nets 2000 yuan per head after paying labor costs of 1000 yuan, feed cost of 4000 yuan plus electric...

A farmer herds his cattle in Hubei Province, august 2009 Mechanization is one of the measures China is pursuing to modernize its agricultural sector. Since 2004, there has been an expanding subsidy program to encourage purchase of all kinds of agricultural machinery. This is a profound change in the rural ecology of China. Traditionally, crops, livestock, and people existed in an interlocking cycle that supported huge numbers of people on a very limited land base. Farm work was performed by a combination of back-breaking labor by people with the help of water buffalo and cattle. In exchange for their work ploughing for a week or two and various other tasks, the cattle got to loaf around and wallow in rice paddies the rest of the year. When their useful life as draft animals was finished, they were turned into a beef dinner. The mechanization program actually has a slogan of “machines replacing cattle (ji dai niu)” that has the objective of eliminating the use of draft cattle. Based on ...