China failed to hit soybean meal dependence targets last year. US deal makes it harder

Beijing sees soybeans as the agricultural industry’s biggest vulnerability, while plans to cut their use in animal feed have little success

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Austin Rohlfing harvests soybeans on his family’s field in Missouri. China is putting strategies in place to reduce its reliance on soybean in animal feed as 80 per cent is sourced from overseas, mostly the US and Brazil. Photo: AP

Published: 3:22pm, 9 Feb 2026

China has been working to cut the use of soybean meal in animal feed – the primary end-use of imported soybeans – as part of its strategy to reduce external dependence, but the latest industry data suggests these efforts have made limited headway.

Last year, the proportion of soybean meal in domestically produced feed stood at 13.4 per cent, unchanged from the previous year, according to data released by the China Feed Industry Association (CFIA) last week.

This indicates that the goal set by agricultural authorities three years ago – reducing soybean meal usage in feed from 14.5 per cent in 2022 to below 13 per cent by 2025 – remains unmet, adding pressure to a longer-term target of lowering the ratio to 10 per cent by 2030.

Beijing views soybeans as the biggest vulnerability in its agricultural sector, with imports consistently accounting for over 80 per cent of total demand. These imports, primarily from Brazil and the United States, are mostly used to produce soybean meal for feed, supporting the country’s massive and growing demand for meat.

Despite efforts to find other protein sources to replace soybean meal since 2023, newly developed substitutions – mainly biosynthetic amino acids – have yet to be utilised at large scale, thereby making limited impact on China’s growing demand for soybeans, Wang Wenshen, an analyst from bulk commodity consulting service provider Sublime China Information, said.

“It’s meaningful for cutting import reliance and safeguarding national food security, but in practice, the new technologies are still too costly,” he said.

China failed to hit soybean meal dependence targets last year. US deal makes it harder

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Beijing sees soybeans as the agricultural industry’s biggest vulnerability, while plans to cut their use in animal feed have little success

Beijing sees soybeans as the agricultural industry’s biggest vulnerability, while plans to cut their use in animal feed have little success