The Council on Foreign Relations published on 25 January 2023 a commentary titled "China Increasingly Relies on Imported Food. That's a Problem" by Zongyuan Zoe Liu.
With less that 10 percent of the planet's arable land, China feeds one-fifth of the world's population. China has been a net importer of agricultural products since 2004. Today, it imports more agricultural products than any other country. Between 2000 and 2020, China's food self-sufficiency ratio decreased from 93.6 percent to 65.8 percent.
The United States was the largest supplier of agricultural products to China until its position weakened following the U.S.-China trade war in 2018. In 2021, Brazil replaced the United States as China's largest agricultural supplier, providing 20 percent of its imported agricultural imports.
The International Trade Centre in Geneva published in November 2022 a major study titled "Enhancing Africa's Agricultural Exports to China." It contains a goldmine of information on African agriculture and especially Africa's agricultural trade with China.
Although African agricultural exports to China have grown rapidly during the past 20 years (from $59 million in 2001 to $3.1 billion in 2020), the continent has usually had a trade deficit in agricultural goods with China. In 2022, Africa had a $600 million trade deficit in agricultural products with China.
The shape of agricultural exports to China has changed significantly. In 2001, vegetable products accounted for only 6 percent of African agricultural exports to China but by 2020 reached 65 percent. Over the same period, the export of animal products from Africa fell from 40 percent to 5 percent.
While Africa remains a modest source of Chinese agricultural imports and there are significant challenges to growing African exports to China, the study also believes there are important opportunities for this trade.
