China Buys Nearly 1 Million Tons of US Soybeans

Nov 19, 2025

By Ryan Hanrahan

Reuters’ Karl Plume reported that “China bought at least 14 cargoes of U.S. soybeans on Monday, two traders with knowledge of the deals said, its largest purchase since at least January and the most significant since a summit between President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping in October.”

“China is buying U.S. soybeans to meet the pledges it made to Washington at the trade summit in Busan, South Korea, even though the cargoes are priced higher than rival Brazilian offers, two Asia-based traders said,” Plume reported. “‘This bigger round of U.S. soybean buying is no longer a goodwill gesture but a manifestation of China’s commitment to the Busan terms,’ said a Singapore-based trader.”

“China’s state-owned grain trader COFCO bought at least 840,000 metric tons for shipment in December and January, the two traders with knowledge of the deals told Reuters,” Plume reported. “Eight of the vessels were for shipment in December and January from U.S. Gulf Coast terminals, while the rest were for shipment in January from Pacific Northwest ports, one trader said. A second trader estimated around 75% of the sales were for Gulf shipment, with the remainder from the Pacific Northwest ports.”

During the government shutdown, USDA daily sales data showed China made two soybean purchases totaling 232,000 metric tons, bringing China’s total recent soybean buys to nearly 1 million metric tons.

Source : illinois.edu

Video: Seeing the Whole Season: How Continuous Crop Modeling Is Changing Breeding

Plant breeding has long been shaped by snapshots. A walk through a plot. A single set of notes. A yield check at the end of the season. But crops do not grow in moments. They change every day.

In this conversation, Gary Nijak of AerialPLOT explains how continuous crop modeling is changing the way breeders see, measure, and select plants by capturing growth, stress, and recovery across the entire season, not just at isolated points in time.

Nijak breaks down why point-in-time observations can miss critical performance signals, how repeated, season-long data collection removes the human bottleneck in breeding, and what becomes possible when every plot is treated as a living data set. He also explores how continuous modeling allows breeding programs to move beyond vague descriptors and toward measurable, repeatable insights that connect directly to on-farm outcomes.

This conversation explores:

• What continuous crop modeling is and how it works

• Why traditional field observations fall short over a full growing season

• How scale and repeated measurement change breeding decisions

• What “digital twins” of plots mean for selection and performance

• Why data, not hardware, is driving the next shift in breeding innovation As data-driven breeding moves from research into real-world programs, this discussion offers a clear look at how seeing the whole season is reshaping value for breeders, seed companies, and farmers, and why this may be only the beginning.