BEIJING, CHINA — China President Xi Jinping said this week at the Central Rural Work Conference that his country will continue to push forward with its mandate to expand grain production, emphasizing a “no relaxation” approach to increasing output.
“We must improve the effectiveness of policies to strengthen agriculture, benefit rural areas and enrich farmers, and promote the maintenance of grain and other key agricultural products at reasonable price levels,” he said, according to a readout of the meeting from state news agency Xinhua.
Xi specifically called for higher overall production capacity and efficiency by integrating high-quality land, seeds, machinery and farming techniques, the report said.
Total year-on-year grain production increased by 1.2% in 2025 to a record 714.9 million tonnes, according to National Bureau of Statistics data. The Chinese government has set a goal of raising grain production capacity by an additional 50 million tonnes by 2030.
In February 2025, China released its “No. 1 Central Document,” underscoring its commitment to ensuring national food security. The document, an important policy statement from the central government, outlined key national goals. One of the goals involves embracing genetically modified crop technology, which was strictly prohibited until recently.
While China is mostly self-sufficient in corn, wheat and rice, meeting over 90% of its demand with domestic output, soybeans self-sufficiency remains elusive. Despite steadily increasing soybean production over the past 10 years — it is forecast to reach a record 21 million tonnes this year — China remains largely dependent on imports.
China is projected to match its all-time high in soybean imports in the 2025-26 marketing year at 112 million tonnes, according to the US Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service. Most of that total came from Brazil, which has supplanted the United States as China’s primary soybean supplier. Earlier this year, China suspended US soybean imports in response to a trade war launched by US President Donald Trump.
In October, the countries reached an agreement with China committing to buy at least 12 million tonnes of US soybeans in the final months of 2025. Citing unnamed sources,Bloombergsaid in a Dec. 30 report that China has only bought two-thirds of that total to date.
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