May 15, 2020

Brazil soybean exporters benefit from China's recovery from African swine fever

Brazil is benefiting from China's recovery from African swine fever, as three-fourths of its soybean exports in March were gobbled up by the East Asian country, according to the state-run Xinhua News Agency, as reported by Caixin on Thursday, May 14.

The expansion of China's swine herd will help boost feed demand and drive both crush and import demand higher, the US Department of Agriculture said, according to the report.

"China is projected to account for over half of global [feed] consumption growth in 2020/21 and roughly 85 percent of import growth", the USDA said.

Signs of China's pig-herd recovery emerged in October 2019 when breeding sows posted their first month-on-month increase, some nine months after ASF was first reported in August 2018..

China's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs projects China's soybean import to increase by 3.3 million tonnes to 91 million tonnes in the 2019-2020 marketing year (October 2019 to September 2020).

Brazil, meanwhile, exported a record-high 16.3 million tonnes of soybeans in April, up more than 70% year-on-year, government data showed. This year the country is expected to export about 84 million tonnes of soybeans in MY 2019-2020, up by nearly 10 million tonnes from the previous marketing year.