In recent times, with the drastic changes in the international food supply system, global food prices have experienced a rapid rise in a large scale. Some countries have also restarted food protectionism strategies and restricted food exports to varying degrees. .

Since my country is currently the world's largest food importer, and domestic wheat prices have continued to soar in recent times, many netizens have begun to worry about whether this global change in food prices will affect food prices through import channels. Food prices in my country? What is the status of my country's grain imports?

In response to the needs of netizens, today we will conduct a comprehensive analysis of the 2021 grain import data in order to give everyone a more intuitive understanding.

First, let’s take a look at the total grain import volume in 2021 reaching a record high of 160 million tons, accounting for 26% of my country’s grain production that year.

From our comparison of the main imported food crops and domestic food production, although soybeans account for the largest proportion of my country's food imports, the variety with the highest foreign dependence is barley.

According to my country’s statistics, my country’s barley output is about 960,000 tons, but last year’s barley imports were as high as 12.48 million tons, 13 times the domestic output; while for soybeans, it was 5 times, followed by sorghum. The ratio between imports and production reached 3.2 times.

Wheat, corn and rice are all below 10%, and the ratio of rice is only 2%.

In addition, the import sources of my country’s main grain and oil varieties are highly concentrated. The total grain import volume of only 6 countries accounts for 93% of all grain imports in my country.

Among all my country’s import source countries, the United States is the largest source of grain imports, accounting for 37.3% of my country’s grain imports, followed by Brazil, accounting for 35.3%.

The combined import volume of the two countries accounts for about 73% of my country’s total grain imports.

In terms of varieties, my country’s corn imports mainly come from the United States and Ukraine, wheat imports come from the United States, Canada, France and Australia, barley imports come from Ukraine, Argentina, Canada and France, and sorghum imports come from the United States and Ukraine. Soybeans mainly come from Brazil and the United States.

The following table shows detailed import data:

It should be pointed out that my country’s grain import structure is not static, but will adjust as the international environment changes.

According to the data we have previously obtained, before 2008, nearly 80% of my country’s grain imports were soybeans, while imports of wheat, rice and corn were all within 4 million tons.

The sources of imports during this period were relatively stable, mainly the United States and Brazil, mainly soybeans, while wheat was mainly imported from the United States, Canada, and Australia, mainly high-quality special wheat, and rice mainly came from Thailand. Mainly high-end rice, while corn is mainly exported. Especially between 1997 and 2007, it was the golden decade for my country's corn exports, with the peak annual export volume approaching 17 million tons.

However, since 2008, my country’s corn imports have gradually expanded, and Ukrainian corn exports to my country have begun to expand; in 2012, with the implementation of domestic temporary reserves, barley, sorghum and DDGS began to be imported in large quantities. The main import channel is still the United States.

After entering 2017, with the trade friction between China and the United States, the current trade pattern was gradually formed after the imposition of tariffs on some agricultural products from the United States in 2018.

During this period, France became one of my country’s main sources of grain imports.

Last year, the import of feed grains continued to maintain rapid growth in the import pattern. The import of rice and wheat was no longer dominated by high-end products. The broken rice in rice imports was mainly used for feed. The source The ground is basically Indian broken rice, and a considerable amount of feed wheat is imported.

From the perspective of the future pattern, it is expected that while maintaining the current large import structure, there will still be minor adjustments, including a slow increase in wheat imports from Russia and an expected increase in Argentine sorghum imports. , in addition to the reopening of US DDGS imports.