For thousands of years, China has always had the tradition of storing grain and preparing for famine, the so-called "grain in the hand, not panic in the heart". On the other hand, although China's grain production has ranked first since the 80s of the last century, the domestic population is large and the consumption is large, and it has to import grain from abroad to make up for the shortage.
Last year, China's total grain imports once again exceeded 1600 million tons, ranking first in the world. In addition to the Americas and Australia, Europe is also the main importer, mainly concentrated in France, Russia, and Ukraine. Grain imports from France are mainly barley and wheat, and I will not go into details here, but mainly talk about grain imports from Ukraine and Russia.
The turmoil in Ukraine has had little impact on our grain imports
With an arable land area of more than 400 million mu, Ukraine is the world's major grain producer and exporter, and is known as the "granary of Europe". Ten years ago, it was the world's second-largest grain exporter after the United States. Ukraine's grain is mainly wheat and corn, and China mainly imports corn from Ukraine, for a long time, Ukrainian corn has become the largest import of corn in China with its superior cost performance, and the United States can only rank second.
Not to mention, taking 2021 as an example, China imported 8.24 million tons of corn from Ukraine that year, accounting for 30% of the total corn imports. From the first point of view, the cost of Ukrainian corn after counting the freight is 1800 yuan tons, which can be said to have a very obvious cost-effective advantage, so it is also quite popular with Chinese buyers. In 2022, affected by the Russian-Ukrainian war, corn ** will rise, once reaching a high of 2,900 yuan tons, and this year, Ukraine will import 7.32 million tons of corn**.
Due to the blockage of exports caused by the war, China's corn production imported from Ukraine will further increase to 5.53 million tons in 2023, almost halved compared with the peak. On the other hand, corn from Brazil has increased significantly, and it is in 2023 that Brazil has become the number one country for China's corn imports, with an import volume of nearly 13 million tons.
At present, the corn imported by our country, whether from Ukraine or other countries, is mainly used for feed processing. Corn imported from Ukraine mainly departs from the port of Kiev and is transported by sea to ports along the southeast coast of our country. In addition, Ukraine produced more than 29 million tonnes of corn in 2023, the vast majority of which was exported, and China remains its second largest export destination despite the decline in corn exports to China. In addition, 240,000 tons of barley were imported from Ukraine, mainly for beer production. Together with other grains, about 6 million tons of grain were imported from Ukraine throughout the year.
In the short term, the situation in Ukraine does not have much impact on China's grain import security, but it also gives a warning to China's food security, that is, grain imports cannot be overly dependent on a single country, otherwise it may encounter the test of "black swan" events.
Compared to Ukraine, Russia produces more grain and exports 60 million tons a year. However, the amount of grain exported to China is not too much, and it is not as large as tens of millions of tons as reported on the Internet. In 2022, although Russia's grain exports to China have increased, they will only be 2.2 million tons. On the contrary, the export volume in 2023 will increase rapidly, increasing by nearly 80%, and the annual grain export to China will reach 3.8 million tons. Compared with Ukraine, it is obviously still a lot worse.
However, this year the situation is expected to be reversed. Because in 2023, at the "Belt and Road" summit forum, China signed a large grain order of up to 70 million tons with Russia, which will be completed within 12 years. On average, 6 million tons of grain will be exported to China every year. This century's large order has ensured the diversification of China's grain and increased the confidence to deal with uncertainties and risks.
According to Russian sources, the new onshore grain corridor jointly built by China and Russia has been officially put into operation, and the grain purchased by China from Russia will arrive by rail, which can transport up to 600,000 tons of grain at the same time, with an annual turnover of up to 8 million tons. After the grain arrives in our country by rail, it is then transported back from our country to other commodities ordered by the Russian side.
Judging from the current situation, the amount of grain imported by China from Ukraine and Russia has recently converged, and if Ukraine's agriculture continues to suffer from the destruction of the war, it is not surprising that its grain exports to China will be surpassed by Russia!