China is on track to slash its reliance on imported soybeans to less than 30 per cent within a decade, from the current 90 per cent, research from Goldman Sachs suggests, as Beijing accelerates efforts to shore up self-sufficiency – including inoculating its food supply against trade shocks.
Demand-management strategies for the crop – a vital source of cooking oil and animal feed, as well as a key commodity at the centre of Beijing’s trade relations with Washington – reduced annual consumption by 15 million tonnes between 2021 and 2024, the investment bank’s analysts, led by Trina Chen, said in a note on Tuesday.
The push, initiated during the first US-China trade war, “has been paramount in mitigating barriers and uncertainties” in trade with the US and South America, the analysts said.
On Thursday, Beijing amplified vows to bolster China’s economy, primarily on the back of domestic demand, and build a robust domestic market to counter external challenges. The commitments came after a high-level annual meeting that set the tone for 2026’s economic policy.
China, the world’s top food consumer, could deepen import cuts, the analysts said. Those could come after recent pledges to Washington.
According to a White House fact sheet, Beijing agreed to purchase a stable, large volume of US soybeans over the next three years, following a presidential meeting in late October.
To curb demand, China has lowered soybean content in animal feed, improved feed-conversion efficiency, and optimised protein mixes.
“Soybeans represent the ultimate core of China’s food security, where low self-sufficiency, supply risks from trade volatility, and high supply concentration meet,” the analysts wrote in their assessment, published on Tuesday.
They added that the soybean strategy enables China “to build the capacity for more replacement, and thus stronger security”.
China imports more than 100 million tonnes of soybeans annually – about 60 per cent of global trade – and has long been the top client for US farmers.
The White House said China had agreed to buy 12 million tonnes of soybeans this year and 25 million annually for the next three years, as part of a trade truce reached by the two nations’ leaders. The US trade representative, Jamieson Greer, clarified on Tuesday that the deadline for the 12 million tonnes was the end of the growing season, instead of year’s end, extending the timeline into February or March.
And at the weekend, Greer said on Fox News that Beijing was, so far, “in compliance” with its purchase commitments.
With soybeans representing the largest single-commodity dependency by volume, China has increasingly prioritised food security in recent years due to trade tensions, climate change, and its limited farmland for a 1.4 billion population.
Overall, China has made “remarkable progress” in arresting a 30-year trend of rising import dependence, the Goldman Sachs note said.
Three years ago, estimates showed China facing a 90-million-hectare arable land shortfall by 2032, as rising demand collided with a fixed supply in this traditional sector.
“We now estimate that the arable land gap has closed to 84 million hectares, with a more defined path narrowing the gap to 5 million hectares by 2035,” the note said, citing advances in farming practices. --- SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
