China's Shifting Protein Needs
Tim Hammerich
News Reporter
2025 has already seen major shifts in the geopolitical landscape, especially regarding U.S. trade partners like China. Ian Lahiffe says two Chinese trends worth watching for American farmers are feeding lower-protein diets to pigs and an ever-growing relationship between China and Brazil.
Lahiffe… “Particularly in the pig industry, you know, China does a huge amount of research on animal health and nutrition, but they've developed a lot of know-how around low protein diets, pigs. And if you look at, you know, the, like we mentioned Mu Yuan, you know, they've developed a lot of technologies and solutions where one, they can feed less protein. And the second is they can use, you know, either peptides or different types of technologies to reduce the amount of soy in the diet. So again, I think, you know, this year, Coffco, which is the China, is kind of the, the trading company. It's the cargo of, it's a state-owned company that does most of the grain trading, they think that overall imports will be down from 100 million to 90 million tons of soy this year. So there's two trends that, you know, I think U. S. producers should be kind of concerned about. One is Brazil becoming increasingly close to China and that Brazilian product can get more easily to the port. And the second is that, you know, Chinese producers are actively looking at nutritional solutions where they can reduce the amount of imported soy that they need.”
Lahiffe warns that as Brazil continues to increase production and outputs, it may lead to an oversupply in the commodity market.
