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China’s recent policies for sustainable soybean trade

Nature Food volume 7, page 115 (2026)Cite this article

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A first group of policies is aimed at promoting sustainable agricultural intensification as a way to increase China’s internal supply and reduce its dependence on imports. The No. 1 central document-Opinions on Further Deepening Rural Reform and Steadily Advancing Comprehensive Rural Revitalization for 2025 is the first annual policy indicator of China, clearly giving priority to ‘large-scale grain and oil crop production increase action’, focusing on consolidating soybean planting area and ‘taking production increase as the primary task’3,4. This top-level directive is being implemented through precise financial and technological interventions. In the same year, the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs launched the Soybean Seed Coating Agent Subsidy in northeast China to promote advanced agriculture5, launching a specialized Corn and Soybean Production Increase Construction Project to build supporting irrigation and fertilization infrastructure6.

A second group of policies focuses on reducing China’s protein demand pressure exerted by the livestock industry, which consumes more than 80% of imported soybeans as animal feed. Following the launch of the Soybean Meal Feed Reduction Action in 2018, the inclusion rate of soybean meal compound feed has been successfully reduced from 17.9% in 2017 to 13.7% in 2024 (ref. 7). In May 2025, the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs also released the Implementation Plan for Livestock Food Conservation Action, which sets an ambitious binding goal to reduce soybean meal by 2030 (increasing this proportion to approximately 10% by adopting a low-protein diet, using alternative protein sources and optimizing livestock structure)8. By directly addressing the core demand drivers, this policy is expected to substantially alter the volume of soybean traded globally and the associated environmental footprint.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Food Science and Nutritional Engineering, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China

    Xinyan Wu & Haixia Yang

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  1. Xinyan Wu
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  2. Haixia Yang
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Correspondence to Haixia Yang.

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Wu, X., Yang, H. China’s recent policies for sustainable soybean trade. Nat Food 7, 115 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-026-01306-3

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