Inside China’s push to feed 1.4 billion people without U.S. crops

This report is from this week’s CNBC newsletter The China Connection, bringing you insights and analysis into what’s driving the world’s second-largest economy. You can subscribe Here.

It has become easier to buy food directly from the farm in China over the past few years.

Whether it’s boxes of apples or vacuum-sealed bags of corn on the cobs, online orders placed through popular e-commerce apps only take a few days to arrive in Beijing.

China’s food safety standards are still under development. But what I’ve noticed is that even if the apples at a nearby supermarket taste artificial – the ones I can order from the countryside taste similar to the ones I eat in the US. And I can’t say it’s that easy to ship apples from an orchard in New York.

The economics behind this consumer experience hinge on several key differences at the heart of the US-China trade story.

During trade tensions over the past decade, the United States has repeatedly asked China to buy more American agricultural products. But many American farmers There was a loss of sales due to the Trump administration’s tariffs.

Soybeans, the largest U.S. agricultural export by value, are making headlines. But even there, the White House struggled to set a deadline for China’s purchases of U.S. soybeans. china bought Record amount last year – mostly from Brazil. But Beijing’s ultimate goal is food security, that is, reducing dependence on other countries.

This is where corn comes into play.

Chinese researchers develop higher protein corn Could replace significant imports of soybeans. Many of these soybeans are used in animal feed that supports domestic meat production. Here, China has a clear goal of increasing self-sufficiency. China aims to reduce soybean meal in animal feed by 2030 only 10%.

Particularly this month, Beijing’s call Improving the quality of domestic soybeansnot simply more plantingAs he insisted last year. This suggests that the land is being saved for something else.

technology based agriculture

To overcome challenges arising from limited farmland and large rural populations, Beijing has sought to use technology and targeted policies to achieve food security goals.

According to Goldman Sachs, China has about three-quarters of the arable land of the United States, even though its population is four times larger; That means policymakers need to double down on increasing yields per acre. About 34% China’s population live in rural areas, compared to roughly 20% in the U.S.

While most of America’s rural plains are dominated by cornfields and tractors, when I make a similar journey through rural China, I find more mountains and many more people still tilling the land by hand. The difference for urban consumers in China is that these farms are more connected to the internet and high-speed trains.

Beijing’s efforts to reduce poverty and ensure social stability in rural areas have driven infrastructure development across the country. E-commerce companies such as JD.com and Pinduoduo have expanded into new markets in rural areas. Companies like DJI have also built a business around agricultural drones. Last year, while taking the high-speed train from Beijing to Shanghai, I saw a drone working in the field.

Tech company Qicaihong has gone even further, expanding from Shenzhen, China’s Silicon Valley, to a very rural part of Yunnan province to standardize local corn production for larger markets.

Local subsidiary Shijing Agricultural Technology uses sensors and software, including DeepSeek’s artificial intelligence, to optimize regional production. Rather than having to find their own sales channels, participating farmers working on small plots of land in the mountain steppes can sell their corn online and to the company at a set price for combined processing before it is sold to large distributors.

A similar story plays out in northeastern Heilongjiang province, where farmers can process their corn at a central facility and sell it nationwide and abroad under the brand name “Laojieji.”

This is just one aspect of local agricultural development. China is investing heavily in agricultural research and development, and public sector spending has also increased. Roughly twice that of the US in 2019 and 2021.

By 2022, China has begun commercializing the first generation of biotech seeds that increase corn yields by 10%, said Trina Chen, co-head of China equity research at Goldman Sachs.

This allowed the country to import only 2.65 million metric tons of corn in 2025, down from peak levels of around 30 million metric tons in 2022 and 2023, according to official data accessed through Wind Information.

Investor interest

More money is being prepared to enter China’s agricultural sector.

Last week, Chinese-owned agricultural technology giant Syngenta I’m trying to go public again, this time in Hong Kong. Listing of 20 percent of the company support research and development investmentsAccording to a report by The Financial Times, based on a source.

Syngenta, which is still headquartered in Switzerland, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Meanwhile, the company’s China business is making progress in supporting domestic seed development. 111 new varieties National approval for commercial use is sought in the quarter ending October 30. Thanks to Syngenta’s global reach, it is building an agricultural edge that can also compete abroad.

This is just a snapshot of China’s highly complex national efforts to reduce its dependence on the United States and other countries for food. But long-held perceptions about China’s food quality will not disappear overnight; Imagine growing tea alongside diesel-fueled trucks.

As an urban consumer living in the country, I now know that I can order products online and they will arrive almost as fresh as if I had visited the farm.

And for American farmers faced with a self-sufficient China, it may be time to start looking for new customers.

Cheng Lu, CEO of CreateAI, discussed the company’s move to integrate AI into the video game creation process. He added that artificial intelligence investments alone will not yield results; they need to be paired with apps.

Eric Zheng, president of AmCham Shanghai, emphasized the importance of an early visit to China by President Trump, given the potential for trade deals between the two countries.

Lenny Zephirin of Zephirin Group said capital markets have so far been able to absorb the surge in Mainland Chinese companies going public through Hong Kong IPOs, and regulators have stepped in to minimize risk to markets.

Trump-Xi meeting. US and Chinese leaders met Taiwan and trade took place late last week ahead of Trump’s highly anticipated visit to Beijing in the spring.