China's grain imports have shown an "N-shaped" growth in recent years

Since the reform and opening up, China's grain imports have gone through stages of first growth, then decline, and then growth again, roughly showing an “N”-shaped trend.

From 1978 to 1996, China's cereals (including wheat, rice, corn, sorghum, barley, etc., among which wheat, rice and corn are the main grains) were imported at an average of more than 10 million tons per year, with wheat being the most important imported product; in 1989, wheat imports reached 15 million tons, accounting for 1/6 of China's wheat output that year.

In 1996, China opened up the soybean market, and soybean imports increased year by year. Driven by a series of grain policy incentives and technological progress, domestic farming resources shifted toward grain production, domestic grain production capacity rose rapidly, and the import volume of foreign grain began to decline continuously.

Since 2010, the rapid development of the domestic livestock industry and related grain deep-processing industries has caused corn (and downstream deep-processed products) imports to surge, driving China's grain imports up again.

In 2013 and 2012, due to the need for variety adjustment, China imported 14.58 million tons and 13.93 million tons of cereals and cereal flour respectively, up 4.7% and 156.7% respectively from the previous year; and imported 63.38 million tons and 58.38 million tons of soybeans, up 8.6% and 11.2% respectively from the previous year.