SIMIC

China has been importing record amounts of corn and soybeans from overseas to feed the world's largest swine herd, which is recovering from African swine fever.

The country faces shortages of farm commodities because of a lack of productive farmland and increasing demand from a more affluent population, said the report.

Asia's largest economy bought almost six million tons of US corn in one week earlier this year, and the US Department of Agriculture announced a further 2.4 million tons of sales this week. The USDA expects the nation's imports of the feed grain to more than triple to 24 million tons this marketing year.

Wheat imports more than tripled to 2.5 million tons, including 1.5 million tons in January, the most for one month in at least 20 years.

Beef shipments soared 34 per cent to 400,000 tons, including an all-time monthly high of 240,000 tons in January. Pork imports rose 26 per cent to 700,000 tons in the first two months.

Imports of sorghum, the world's fifth-most important cereal crop after rice, wheat, corn and barley, have quadrupled to 1.4 million tons, with the January total of 690,000 tons the most for a month since 2017.

Sugar imports more than tripled to one million tons in the first two months. Cotton shipments in January at 400,000 tons were the highest monthly total since 2013 amid a recovery in the textile industry.