China produces roughly 82% of the food it consumes, making it largely self-sufficient but increasingly reliant on imports to fill the gap. That remaining 18% comes from a sprawling global network of trade partners, with Brazil, the United States, Russia, and several Southeast Asian and Latin American countries playing major roles. The picture is more nuanced than a single number suggests, though, because China is nearly self-sufficient in some crops (rice and wheat) while heavily dependent on imports for others (soybeans).
Domestic Farms Still Supply Most of the Food
China’s food self-sufficiency rate peaked at about 98% in 2014, then dropped to around 82% by 2022. That decline reflects a population whose diet has shifted toward more meat, dairy, and cooking oil, all of which require enormous quantities of animal feed and oilseed crops that domestic farms can’t fully provide.
The country’s 2024 Food Security Law frames the government’s priorities clearly: “absolute security” in staple grains like rice and wheat, and basic self-sufficiency in everything else. In practice, this means China guards its rice and wheat supply fiercely while accepting dependence on imports for soybeans, certain meats, and seafood.
The northeast provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin, and Liaoning, along with Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang, are the country’s agricultural engine. These five regions contributed nearly 70% of the national increase in grain output in the most recent harvest year, with corn alone accounting for about 75% of that growth. Southern provinces remain the heartland of rice production, while the North China Plain dominates wheat.
Soybeans: China’s Biggest Import Dependency
No single commodity illustrates China’s food import story better than soybeans. In 2023, China imported roughly 87.4 million metric tons of soybeans worth about $59.4 billion. These beans are crushed into cooking oil and soybean meal, which feeds the country’s massive pork, poultry, and aquaculture industries. Without imported soybeans, China’s meat supply would collapse.
The sourcing is concentrated in just two countries. Brazil supplied nearly 69% of China’s soybean imports in 2023, shipping almost 60 million metric tons. The United States provided about 26%, with roughly 22.4 million metric tons. Argentina, Canada, and Russia together accounted for less than 5%. This heavy reliance on Brazil and the U.S. creates a vulnerability that Chinese policymakers are well aware of, particularly given the trade tensions with Washington that have flared repeatedly since 2018.
Brazil: The Single Biggest Food Supplier
Brazil’s agricultural relationship with China has deepened dramatically over the past two decades. In 2024, one-third of Brazil’s total agricultural export value went to China, making the trade flow significant for both countries. Beyond soybeans, China buys 46% of Brazil’s beef exports, 33% of its cotton, 29% of its sugar, and 19% of its pork. Brazil is, by a wide margin, the single most important external source of food for Chinese consumers.
The relationship runs deeper than simple trade. COFCO, China’s state-owned food conglomerate, has invested over $2.3 billion in Brazil, building an integrated supply chain of storage facilities, processing plants, and logistics networks. COFCO recently won the bid to build one of the largest grain terminals at Santos Port, Latin America’s biggest port, which has direct shipping routes to 125 countries. This kind of infrastructure investment means China isn’t just buying Brazilian crops. It’s embedding itself in the supply chain from farm to ship.
The United States as a Major Supplier
Despite recurring trade disputes, the U.S. remains China’s second-largest source of soybeans and a significant supplier of corn, sorghum, and other agricultural products. American farmers have long viewed China as one of their most important export markets, and the USDA tracks this trade closely through its Foreign Agricultural Trade database.
The relationship is politically sensitive on both sides. During the 2018-2019 trade war, China sharply reduced U.S. soybean purchases and shifted toward Brazilian suppliers. Purchases later recovered under the Phase One trade deal, but the episode underscored how quickly geopolitics can redirect billions of dollars in food trade. China has since worked to diversify its soybean sources, including growing imports from Russia and expanding domestic soybean planting, though neither effort has meaningfully reduced the dominance of Brazil and the U.S.
Seafood: Mostly Homegrown, With Key Imports
China is the world’s largest seafood producer by a wide margin, harvesting an estimated 74.1 million metric tons in 2024. The vast majority of this comes from aquaculture, fish and shrimp farming operations concentrated along the eastern and southern coasts and in inland freshwater ponds. Wild-caught ocean fish make up a smaller share.
Imports supplement this enormous domestic output. Russia is China’s largest seafood supplier, shipping 1.11 million metric tons in 2024, primarily pollock and crab. Ecuador follows at 700,000 metric tons, mostly shrimp. Vietnam, India, Indonesia, and the United States each contribute between 280,000 and 330,000 metric tons. While these import volumes sound large, they represent a small fraction of China’s total seafood consumption given the scale of domestic production.
COFCO and the State-Run Supply Chain
Understanding where China gets its food requires understanding COFCO, the state-owned corporation that serves as the country’s main channel for agricultural imports and exports. COFCO operates a global grain trading network that rivals the Western commodity giants like Cargill and ADM. It has storage and logistics facilities spanning Brazil, the Black Sea region, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa.
In South Africa, COFCO’s subsidiary is the largest integrated grain processing and trading company in the country, handling everything from procurement to storage to distribution. In Southeast Asia, it promotes rice trade. In Indonesia and New Zealand, it has extended into the dairy supply chain. This global footprint means China isn’t simply buying food on the open market. It controls significant portions of the infrastructure that moves grain, oilseeds, and other commodities from farm to port in multiple producing countries.
Investing Abroad to Secure Future Supplies
China has used the Belt and Road Initiative to build agricultural capacity in countries across Africa, Central Asia, and Southeast Asia. These investments take various forms. In Egypt, the New Hope Group has invested 475 million yuan in six feed companies and a poultry breeding operation. In Zambia, a Chinese biotech company runs thousands of acres of paprika and marigold crops. In Sudan, Chinese enterprises have improved cotton planting and processing. In the Philippines, a Chinese seed company has expanded hybrid rice cultivation.
The Chinese government has also designated official overseas agricultural cooperation zones, including one in Tajikistan. COFCO has invested in grain storage and logistics in the Black Sea and Central Asia. These investments serve a dual purpose: they create goodwill and economic ties with partner countries while building alternative supply chains that reduce China’s dependence on any single region. If Brazilian soybean shipments were ever disrupted, for instance, having grain infrastructure in Central Asia and the Black Sea region provides at least a partial backup.
The Overall Picture
China feeds most of its 1.4 billion people from its own land, particularly when it comes to rice, wheat, and vegetables. But its growing appetite for meat, cooking oil, and processed foods has created an import dependency that now accounts for roughly one-fifth of total food consumption. Brazil and the United States dominate the import side, especially for soybeans, while Russia leads in seafood. Through COFCO and Belt and Road investments, the Chinese government is working to diversify these sources and control more of the supply chain directly, rather than relying on foreign commodity traders.
The tension at the heart of China’s food system is between a political commitment to self-sufficiency and the mathematical reality that feeding a huge, increasingly wealthy population requires vast quantities of imported animal feed and oilseeds. China’s Food Security Law enshrines the goal of keeping staple grains secure at home while “importing moderately” for everything else. That moderate importing now runs to tens of billions of dollars a year and touches every major agricultural exporting region on Earth.