An analyst says China’s grain purchases are way down, and the long-term outlook is not promising.
The country purchased just over 20 million tonnes of wheat, corn, barley and sorghum last year and is expected to buy about the same amount in 2025-26.
That is well below the 60 million tonnes purchased in 2021-22 and nearly the same amount in 2023-24.
One of the main reasons is that China’s own wheat and corn production hit record levels in 2023-24.
Corn production is set to hit a fresh new high in 2025-26 of 295 to 298 million tonnes.
When domestic production is high China tends to control imports by how it manages its annual tariff rate quotas for wheat and corn, which are 9.6 million tonnes and 7.2 million tonnes respectively.
Import duties are one per cent in quota and 65 per cent out of quota.
