Comment by btbuildem
1 day ago
> growers expanded plantings of soybeans, which require less fertilizer than grains like corn and wheat
It's not the drought per se, it's input costs. Farmers are favouring crops that need less nitrogen and potassium.
Commodities have responded accordingly.
> growers expanded plantings of soybeans
A year ago China stopped buying soybeans from the US is seems ("China Bought $12.6 Billion in U.S. Soybeans Last Year. Now, It’s $0." - https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/25/business/china-soybean-sa...), was that resumed, or who are all these new soybeans going to? Is it all for national use instead of export?
When China buys from someone else (Brazil - nobody else has significant soy bean surplus) that means whoever was buying from that someone else now needs to go to the US.
The US also uses a lot of soy beans internally. Prices are down, but farmers are still selling soybeans and with careful management are making money.
I don't think international trade is so stable that any shift would imply equal and opposite shifts in trade. For example it looks like Brazil's production is up 5% while China's overall usage may be down 6%.
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Soybeans are a pretty stellar food for protein per calorie.
And to stop misinformation in its tracks:
> A March 2021 meta-analysis published in Reproductive Toxicology concluded that neither soy protein nor isoflavone intake significantly affects reproductive hormone levels in men. Analyzing data from 41 studies and 1,753 participants, the researchers found no statistically significant effects on testosterone or estrogen regardless of intake dose or duration.
so Gemini says, link - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33383165/
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some other options than buying american:
- tap into a reserve, like buying from china itself - buy from somebody else who grows their industry - consume less and produce less of the downstream item - swap to an alternative input, eg. canola
its a national security issue to take dependencies on imports to or exports from america now. if a nation does, it will be part of trade negotiation, where the benefit from the US outweighs the liability.
If you havent watched the Carney Davos speech, its worth a watch or a rewatch - this is how the world is thinking about US trade. Significantly risky. I think the US soy price still has room to go down, as other countries take over the production, and have favoured nation agreements with each other
idk if its really a bif deal though, farmers grow soy because its good for their fields, and getting to sell it is an extra bonus. if a farmer is dependent on selling the soy, they probably arent doing so well overall
Yes, with one change.
If you can sell to 3 markets, you can negotiate. If one stops buying from you, now you only have 2 markets. And they each know that you can't sell to the other, regardless of demand.
The less favourable your selling position, typically the less you get...
I expect other nations are still consuming US soybeans. China stopped because it was particularly negatively targeted by US tariff policy.
But make no mistake, it has caused problems for farmers.
The report from my small hometown farmers is that everything, except for beef, is down right now while the prices of inputs like fertilizer are high. Some of the farmers in my hometown have already sold their land to megacorp farmers in response because they simply can't survive.
> I expect other nations are still consuming US soybeans
But who? Compared to 2024, 2025 had almost half soybean exports it seems (https://www.fas.usda.gov/data/commodities/soybeans), I'm guessing most of the difference was China basically stopped buying soybeans.
But it's a huge difference, yet production seems to be ramping up? I don't understand why they'd do that when the exports are going down?
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It wouldn't surprise me, at all, if the soybeans rotted away with no consumers.
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China has a tendency to shift to self-reliance or importing from more pliable neighborswhenever they execute policies like that. So even if they’re buying again, I highly doubt it is at the same rate it once was
They all need diesel to run the equipment as well, which is also approaching all time highs.