Insight Focus
China forecasts soybean import decline despite rising supply. Cheaper Brazilian soybeans have lowered prices, sustaining demand, boosting livestock expansion, and displacing other edible oils despite economic and demographic headwinds. The key question for 2026 is whether China can absorb another surge in Brazilian exports as falling margins and livestock losses begin to curb demand.
China’s Demand Headwinds Clash with Brazil-Driven Import Growth
This week, the Chinese agriculture ministry projected that China’s imports of soybeans will fall from 112 million tonnes in 2025 to 82.6 million tonnes by 2035, erasing the past decade of import growth. This projection fails to account for the role of surging supplies, which drive down prices to stimulate demand—a process that perpetuates China’s reliance on imported beans. But it does raise the question of whether China can absorb yet another influx of Brazilian soybeans in 2026.
Note: Historical data from USDA PS&D and projections released by the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, April 20, 2026.
China’s demand for soybeans does face headwinds. The country’s birth rate has plummeted, and the elderly are the fastest-growing population cohort. The economy has clearly slowed, with official GDP growth and unemployment both at 5% (and both numbers are likely overoptimistic). Ghost kitchens producing discount food for delivery are replacing high-end restaurants. Per-capita consumption of edible oils decreased marginally from 29.3 kg to 28.5 kg between 2024 and 2025.
China’s agriculture ministry attributes its projected drop in soybean imports to health-conscious consumers reducing edible oil intake, livestock farmers cutting back on soybean meal use in animal feed, and expanding domestic soybean production. However, surging supplies from Brazil are undercutting these narratives by driving down prices and stimulating demand for imported soybeans, despite the overall lacklustre demand picture in China.
China’s agriculture ministry does not mention that it has been predicting a decline in soybean imports since 2022, when it projected that imports would fall to 85.8 million tonnes by 2031. That projection turned out to be quite wrong. Despite the headwinds described above, China’s soybean imports set a record of 112 million tonnes in calendar year 2025. The ministry’s insistence on projecting declines year after year suggests these projections are propaganda dressed up as objective market analysis.
Expansion of Brazilian exports and an easing of commodity prices stimulated China’s consumption of soybeans, despite its flagging economy and the onset of population decline. Between 2022 and 2025, China’s imports of Brazilian soybeans rose from 54.4 to 82.3 million tonnes. Meanwhile, the average cost of imported soybeans fell from a peak of USD 723/tonne in August 2022 to USD 443/tonne in August 2025.
Source: China Customs
Note: Monthly average value of soybean imports
Source: China Customs
The price of Chinese soybean meal—the chief product of soybean processing—declined as the volume of imports increased, stimulating consumption. During 2025, the average soymeal price was down 40% from its 2022 peak. Cheaper soybean meal, in turn, encouraged feed mills and livestock farmers to maintain high proportions of soybean meal in animal feed—defying instructions from the agriculture ministry to cut back. Cheap feed kept a lid on production costs for livestock producers, contributing to breakneck expansion. Between 2022 and 2025, hog feed production grew by 30 million tonnes and poultry feed production grew by 12 million tonnes, according to China’s Feed Industry Association. Soybean meal comprised 12–15% of feed ingredients.
Source: China’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs
Cheap Soybean Oil Masks Weak Demand Amid Brazil Surge
China’s surge in soybean imports also put downward pressure on the price of soybean oil—the other product of soybean processing. Soybean oil has become the cheapest edible oil in China, displacing varying amounts of palm, rapeseed, and sunflower oil. Imports of edible oils declined by about 30% during 2022–25. Low prices also created an opportunity for Chinese edible oil producers to sell abroad, as the country became a net exporter of soybean oil for the first time in 2025.
Whether China can absorb another increase in Brazil’s exports will be a factor to watch in the global soybean market. Last year, Brazil exported 108 million tonnes of soybeans, of which 85.4 million tonnes were bound for China. This year, Brazil’s exports are projected by various agencies to rise to 113–116 million tonnes. In the first three months of 2026, China was the predominant destination for Brazil’s exports, but its share was down seven percentage points year over year.
China’s market is anticipating another large influx of Brazilian beans in Q2 2026. Supplies of soybeans and soybean meal are temporarily tight in April. Arrivals of soybeans in China were at a seasonal low in March of just 4 million tonnes—only 1.4 million tonnes from Brazil—and some crushers shut down for maintenance. Soybean arrivals are expected to increase to 9–10 million tonnes in April and 10–11 million tonnes in May, reflecting shipments of Brazil’s new crop. Chinese officials have relaxed inspections for foreign material in Brazilian shipments that delayed customs clearance in March.
Soybean meal supplies in China are expected to ramp up along with the pace of soybean arrivals. This year, there is less potential for low prices to stimulate additional demand. China’s hog and poultry producers are suffering a hangover from rapid expansions last year—fuelled in part by cheap soybean meal. In 2026, meal prices have already fallen about 12% since late March, echoing a 25% drop in hog prices that began in February. Hog producers facing deep financial losses appear to be cutting back on animal numbers and skimping on soybean meal use. Growing meal supplies could push prices even lower.
Prices for soybean oil in China are caught between bullish sentiment related to disruptions in petroleum markets and speculation about an El Niño event, versus bearish prospects of a surge in domestic supplies. Chinese processors have reportedly already booked export sales of soybean oil for the summer months.
There is no sign yet of a reversal in Chinese soybean imports, despite the unfavourable outlook and narrow or negative crushing margins. All indications are that Chinese buyers have again eagerly bought up Brazilian soybeans in 2026. There is also the prospect of additional purchase pledges from the US during a Trump–Xi summit expected in May. It remains unclear how much further prices can fall in China and what it would take to reverse the growth in imports.
