China has unveiled its rural “revitalization” plan for 2025, listing “ensuring the supply of grain” and overall food security as its top priority. “China’s grain supply, overall, does not surpass demand; instead, it remains in a state of borderline sufficiency,” Han Wenxiu, director of the Office of the Central Rural Work Leading Group under the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee. He said this year’s rural policy outline, known in China as “Document No. 1,” will focus on efforts to “stabilize” an area of arable land that will serve as the country’s grain basket.
China imported 29.5 million tons of corn in the 2020-21 marketing year, more than five times the pre-2020 maximum, Reuters reported on Feb. 11, adding that much of that haul was U.S.-sourced.China’s 2024-25 corn and wheat imports reached 10 million and 8 million metric tons, respectively, down nearly a quarter from the January estimates, Reuters cited U.S. Department of Food and Agriculture figures as saying, in sharp falls of 57% and 32% respectively from their averages over the last four seasons. Meanwhile, soybean imports reached a record high of 105 million tons in 2024, accounting for 66% of total grain imports, it said.
