Brazil Will Remain China's Preferred Soybean Supplier, Not The US

Yet food security is still a concern. Protein is one issue. Your people's demand for meat and dairy products has risen. You raise half the world's pigs but still import pork.

And you need a lot of animal feed.

Growing animal feed takes land and, despite having a bit more total land than the US, your country has 120 million fewer arable acres. You're trying to feed 35% of the world's population with only 7% of its arable land. You don't have as much water as you need, either.

You're trying hard to produce more. Your country invests twice what the US does on agricultural research. And, just in case, you've built up big food reserves.

Still, you have to import a lot of animal feed, especially soybeans. You need beans for cooking oil as well.

Your challenge is how to import the agriculture products your country needs consistent with a high priority on food security. What's your strategy?

Way back when, your answer was diversification. Depending too heavily on any one country is risky. What if there's a crop failure? What if a political squabble tempts the country to cut you off? It seemed especially risky to depend too heavily on a country as powerful the United States, which has multiple ways to hurt China.

Yet, back then, the US was the country with the greatest capacity to meet your voluminous needs. For many years, it was your preferred supplier.

To diversify, you needed to encourage another potential supplier to expand production. Brazil was the obvious choice. There was a lot of cerrado land in the semi-arid savannah region in central Brazil that could be planted in soybeans.

The Brazilians didn't disappoint you. Eyeing that big potential market in China, they planted and planted. Over time, Brazil overtook the US as the world's biggest soybean producer.

Nor is Brazil done expanding. On top of the nearly 120 million acres planted to soybeans now – nearly 35 million more than the US – Brazil has another 70 million cerrado acres.

So now you have two big potential suppliers. One is your rival for world supremacy, a country you've been at loggerheads with over trade issues for years. The other is the world's biggest producer of the product and a country you have warming diplomatic relations with.

Not a hard call, is it? Brazil is your preferred supplier. During the last 20 years or so, Brazil's exports of soybeans have quadrupled, mostly thanks to you. You're their big customer.

Brazil runs a big trade surplus with China. You don't mind. Food security is worth a trade deficit – and your country runs big trade surpluses with more than enough other countries to compensate.

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Not only are you buying from Brazil, you're helping solve one of Brazilian agriculture's biggest problems: getting product to export markets. Your countrymen are developing an enormous export terminal at Santos near Sao Paolo and railroad lines that could someday move soybeans from Brazil to a Chinese port in Peru.

Of course, even if Brazil could supply all your needs you would continue to buy from other countries, including the US. You don't want to rely totally on any one supplier. You would no doubt resume significant purchases from the US in exchange for tariff reductions on your exports of manufactured products.

Not a quadrupling, though. You are very comfortable with Brazil as your permanent preferred supplier.

Former longtime Wall Street Journal Asia correspondent and editor Urban Lehner is editor emeritus of DTN/The Progressive Farmer.

This article, originally published on September 1 by the latter news organization and now republished by Asia Times with permission, is © Copyright 2025 DTN/The Progressive Farmer. All rights reserved. Follow Urban Lehner on X @urbanize

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