Some Midwest Soybeans Are Headed to China. But Farmers Still Need Other Buyers

By Will Bauer

After a months-long standoff, China has agreed to buy 12 million metric tons of U.S. soybeans this year – less than half of what the country has historically purchased.

U.S. soybean farmers this fall had faced the grim reality of losing their largest foreign buyer, until President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping struck a deal last week. Still, many are holding onto their soybeans, waiting for better prices or selling them to be processed domestically.

“China buys, traditionally, about half the soybeans we export, and we can't replace that amount with domestic usage. It's impossible,” said Tanner Ehmke, an economist with agricultural lender CoBank. “Even if we did, we would have a tremendous amount of soybean meal that we'd need to find a home for.”

China has committed to buy 25 million metric tons of soybeans annually over the next three years, which tracks far closer to what the Asian giant had been buying before the trade war.