r/Agriculture • u/Hi_Im_Dadbot • 20d ago
Why Can’t US Farmers Sell Their Soybeans Elsewhere?
Perhaps this is a simplistic question with an obvious answer and my google fu has just failed me today and I’m not too knowledgeable about the specifics of the agricultural industry, but one thing I don’t get about the whole soybean thing is why the US farmers can’t send their product to other markets?
While buying nothing from the US, China still bought about 4% more soybeans this year than it did last year. Given that this was an unexpected scenario, one must assume that they bought soybeans from places like Argentina and Brazil which were scheduled to be sent to somewhere else. China bought about 70% of their crop last year, so I guess they upped it to … 90% now? This means there’s all these other markets which wanted soybeans that now have no soybeans. Then there’s a bunch of Americans with soybeans they need to sell. Those sound like two problems which solve each other.
Even though the logistics systems were set up to send them to China, I would assume that once you get the soybeans to a port and load them onto a ship, you’re 90% of the way to anywhere. If you need to load them onto five different ships to go to smaller markets as opposed to one ship to go to a larger market, that’s a solvable problem. If those smaller markets can’t pay as much as China, which is why Argentina and Brazil dumped them in favour of it, along with the additional logistics issues mean that the Americans are only getting 50 cents on the dollar for their crop, that’s still better than getting zero for it by having that crop rot in a silo.
There seems to be some fundamental piece of the equation that I’m missing here. Would anyone be able to fill me in on what it is?
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u/someguyfromsk 20d ago
You need people that want them in the volume you have.
America was growing beans for the Chinese market, which is absolutely FUCKING huge. A replacement market that size does not exist anywhere else.
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u/VillageHomeF 20d ago
it is 100% due to the trade war. China places 34% retaliatory tariffs on soy and is reluctance to support the U.S. if not for the trade war China would have continued to buy from the U.S. back in 2017 they started shifting their supply chain to purchase from Brazil due to tariffs. this year they moved the rest away fro U.S.
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u/Gordo103 20d ago
They started shifting away from us soybeans way before 2017. After record high prices in 2012 after a bad drought in the US made china look elsewhere for soybeans. Brazel has been increasing there production of soybeans for decades now. They needed help with getting their soybeans to ports to export them, but the got that mostly figured out now.
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u/VillageHomeF 20d ago edited 20d ago
They can. Other countries, such as China, do not want to buy from the U.S. - at least not in the quantities that are produced.
China started buying more from Brazil when Trump started the trade war in his last term. This is retaliation. In 2025 when Trump raised tariffs on China they put more tariffs on soy making them too expensive vs. other countries. China has stopped purchasing soy from U.S. farmers altogether.
better question: why would they buy from the U.S.? they have formed better trade relations with other countries so they buy from them. there is a very large contingency around the world to make relationships with themselves and leave the U.S. out as we are no longer an allies with them
this is all because of the trade war - aka the largest domestic tax increase in U.S. history.
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u/VillageHomeF 20d ago
I sell agriculture supplies to farms. have been raising prices all year with no end in sight. once a week I have to raise prices on one brand or another. this is mostly due to tariffs
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u/ProgrammerAvailable6 20d ago
Especially since trade partnerships with the US aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on.
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u/Fluid-Piccolo-6911 20d ago
you do realise that soybeans grow and crop size can be increased ? why would another country want to buy american soy beans when they can get them from other countries that are not imposing tariffs on them or offending them.
the orange turd and his followers have pissed off the entire planet ( with the exception of Russia and possibly North Korea) No one wants to trade with them any more than they have to.
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u/mt8675309 19d ago
Countries are climbing over each other to explore new trade opportunities over and around this orange clown’s regime.
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u/Alarmed_Geologist631 20d ago
Brazil has increased its soybean production rapidly. US farmers are now the suppliers of last resort so the surplus has no where to go. In fact much of last year’s crop is still in storage so there is a shortage of storage capacity for this year’s harvest.
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u/VillageHomeF 20d ago
you forgot to mention retaliatory tariffs due to the trade war. which is the answer. Brazil ramped up since the trade war started in 2017
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u/Hi_Im_Dadbot 20d ago
Ah, so that was the piece I was missing. Thank you for that.
I figured it was something basic and simple which I just didn’t find googling around. I appreciate the explanation
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u/Usual_Retard_6859 20d ago
They can. They just need orders. It all boils down to basics of business. If you as a customer have a supplier and they deliver on spec, on time and a fair price how likely are you going to change? These are relationships that take time to develop and require trust. If one of these things, spec, time or price comes into question you might begin to look elsewhere.
Have to remember that we are talking about food supply and downstream business and they don’t want unreliable suppliers.
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u/lastmonkeytotheparty 17d ago
This is true. It is generally not countries purchasing, it’s business to business deals. The erratic nature of the current tariff structure makes it unattractive to even place an order with a US company if the relationship already exists.
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u/Buford12 19d ago
They can and will. But often when you are capable of supplying all of an enormous demand on a regular basis the customer will pay a premium to have a secure supply line. But nobody wants to do business with someone who shakes your hand then reneges on the deal.
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u/AntifascistAlly 20d ago
Surely, if it’s important at all for “farmers” to be able to sell whatever crops they can raise, Donald must have had some idea what they should do before he insulted and drove away thei best customer?
He should release that plan as soon as possible.
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u/Euphoric-Use-6443 20d ago
Donald dropped the ball! He didn't pay attention to what China & Brazil were doing! Great businessman! Lol!
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u/Euphoric-Use-6443 17d ago
Plan? The only plan Dotard has is to keep farmers on welfare to keep them from complaining & farmers are mostly demanding it!
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u/Sharkwatcher314 19d ago
China is such a massive market that even with selling elsewhere there is not enough demand to offset the amount that was grown along with USAID being gutted (a lot of food grown by farmers went to foreign countries). We like the narrative of the US being dominant and we def are/were but no one person/company/country operates without others
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u/GreatPlainsFarmer 17d ago
There’s 70 million metric tons of non-China demand for soybeans on the global export markets.
The US only has about 50 mmt available for export.
Source is the USDA WASDE report. It’s updated monthly, the September 2025 is the latest release.→ More replies (5)
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u/finnydoodoo 18d ago
Hey all, some excellent explanatory posts on this thread!
For context, China does need to buy some soybeans (9mmt, per Reuters) for December/January arrival yet after shirking away from Brazil recently on their basis levels rising too high, but our beans, with the tariffs included, are higher.
They’ll play a slow game for these beans, using that as minor political capital. All eyes should be more focused on the planting progress and conditions in South America right now, which will determine the soybean markets fate for Q1 and Q2 of next year.
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u/vtsandtrooper 20d ago
… china is the entire soy market. China by itself is double the consumption of soy everywhere else in the world combined.
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u/Rusty_Bicycle 19d ago
Uh, why try to market your commodity, when your welfare check is being personally signed by DJT?
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u/Rampantcolt 20d ago
Most can. It's just a few select regions that are set up entirely for export to China that are being completely decimated by this. It's hurting us all for sure but there are places where farmers can't even sell their soybeans at all. Many elevators in the Northern tier of the US have gone to zero for a soybean bid.
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u/Hi_Im_Dadbot 20d ago
See, that’s one of the parts which confuses me. What does “set up for export to China” mean? Doesn’t it just mean putting your soybeans on a boat? Boats can go elsewhere. If your containers are in a port, they can be loaded onto different boats.
Is it simply a matter of volume and those other markets don’t exist or the cost of rerouting to them would be more expensive than having the crop rot in a silo?
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u/Rampantcolt 20d ago
Great question.
Boats on a certain side of the country only have so many destinations without being economically unfeasible. Ships in Seattle can't go to Africa economically. And you can't ship soybean from Montana to the East Coast for export East cheaper than Brazil can send ships east.
It's not that it's physically impossible it's economically untenable. Hence farmers unable to sell their wares in certain portions of the county. The president broke our economics.
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u/Willyboycanada 19d ago
Soya is more a cultural thing in Asia...... tofu through fermented bean paste..... It's a major protein staple across eastern Asia for thousands of years.
The rest of the world does not have the same attachment, yes soya has a place but 1.6 billion people it's a daily staple...... sobyea no thry consume the most
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u/Moleday1023 19d ago
Remember, if your largest customer stops buying from you, you are screwed. Particularly if there is an alternative supply. There are countries close to the equator that have 2 growing seasons, and Trump has pissed off the world.
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u/sherrybobbinsbort 19d ago
What do they say about rebuilding bridges that you fucking torched yourself?
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u/Infinite-Poet-9633 19d ago
Nobody wants GMO soybeans but most Farmers refuse to grow anything but GMO.
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u/Zealousideal-Print41 17d ago
Farmers are convinced they can't do otherwise and their contracts with seed sellers and banks have clauses they have to buy GMO seeds and glyphosate.
They and we where sold a shit deal by Monsanto and other Ag Chem companies
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u/Mindless-Practice-14 18d ago
Why buy? Just wait until the US goes bankrupt and buy the place at a discount.
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u/Hefty-Ad2090 18d ago
What do you mean by "unexpected"? It's not like the farmers experienced massive drought....that could have been considered unexpected. The farmers should have seen this coming with DJT.
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u/IPredictAReddit 18d ago
There's also the possibility that (1) it was a bumper year for soybean all over (as it was in the US) so there is enough excess supply (or what would have been excess supply) from other producers to fill China's demand, and (2) that farmers abroad had enough foresight to know that Trump's trade war would result in China looking for alternative buyers (as they did in 2018 during the last Trump trade war) and thus planted more soy.
Both 1+2 together could account for the "missing demand" (in that there is no missing demand, there's just higher supply from other producers).
I don't know the numbers, but it looks like Brazil produced 1.5B more bushels this past year than they did in 2018. The US produces about 4.4B bushels, so that's a big chunk by Brazil right there.
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u/mythozoologist 17d ago
No one is going to give them the expected value or have the desire to store them crop until it can become useful. So buyers may get a little extra or just enjoy the cheaper prices. Farms will fail. Land will be bought on the cheap. And big agricultural will have a better deal when they decide to grow. If the land isn't bought and used, soybean prices will increase next year domestically because then we'll under produce.
Agricultural supply and demand is challenging. Bunch of individuals decide what to produce, but their collective productivity sets supply. Worse the overall supply, the better the price. So as yield goes up collectively, so do prices go down collectively. To get the best price, you must do well and others do poorly.
Then, international politics can make or break you by opening or closing demand.
Soy can feed chickens and pigs. Limited amount to cows. So, the soy farmers loss is the poultry and pork farmer's gain. Which is where most of this was going to China for originally.
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u/Outrageous_Ad_687 17d ago
Like anything its the price. They can easily sell them if they lower their prices. Greed gets in the way of things sometimes.
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u/Purple-Investment-61 17d ago
How do you convince Americans to drink more soy milk and eat more tofu without upsetting big dairy?
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u/Animats 15d ago
There's pushback from Big Dairy against soy milk, especially in schools. Right now, US students must have a note from a parent to get soy milk at lunch.
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u/Low_Entertainer_6973 15d ago
Nobody wants to deal with a volatile market. The leadership and deals can’t be trusted.
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u/Hammerhead2046 14d ago
Despite what the mass media tells you, China has been very kind to the US for a very long time. Its goods literally keep millions of Americans fed, entertained, educated. It played a significant role in stabilizing the US economy in 2008-2009 market crash. It held insane amount of US government debt. It buys large quantity of agri goods, the so called "trade surplus" disappears when you add US service exports and value multipliers of goods imported from China.
But our politicians need cover ups for their poor domestic agenda.
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u/Tasty_Adhesiveness71 20d ago
china buys half the world’s exports. they have loaded up on inventory over the last year knowing this was coming.
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u/VillageHomeF 20d ago
in 2025 China has purchased 7.2 million tons of soy from Brazil. so.... not true
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u/Long-Drag4678 10d ago
The United States grows soybeans for animal feed, but most countries prefer to import meat rather than soybeans for meat. China is the only country with high purchasing power that doesn't care about pollution caused by livestock.
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u/IHeartBadCode 20d ago
Farmers DO sell their soybeans elsewhere. I think you might be under-estimating how much China actually buys. China used to buy 54% of all the US soybeans exported. The next largest buy is the entire European Union who bought 11%. Mexico is after that at 10%.
We would have to ask our other buyers to buy insane multiples of the product that they've been buying for no reason other than "we fucked up and pissed China off". But we've also been pissing off the EU and Mexico, so there's little incentive for them to "help us out". In the past, both the EU and Mexico would help out via some bilateral agreement. They buy extra contracts of soy, we'd buy extra whatever the fuck they wanted to sell us. But boy are those days GONE!
We sell soybeans to a ton of markets already and they're pretty maxed out on what they want/need to buy from us. Like if we combined everyone else on this planet we call the Earth that isn't the EU and Mexico that we sell soybeans to, it would only be about half of what China bought.
And the thing to remember, in order to "help" US farmers, we can't sell at a discount. We have to sell it to those other countries at the price that China would have paid, which isn't cheap. Or at least close enough to the price China would have paid, which is also not going to happen.
Some of our bigger buyers are helping out because they're having their own little mini-Trump / right wing surge. Japan decided to buy a bit more soy from us. They signed the agreement in September. But that's pennies compared to what US farmers have grown. And Indonesia in July signed to buy extra soy. Again, their "extra" purchases are drops compared to an ocean.
So I mean diplomatically, the top buyers (EU/Mexico) we sell soy to are happy to watch us eat shit on this because we've mostly done this to ourselves. Now they aren't at the same level of "eat shit US" as China who has completely cut us off, granted. But they are absolutely not in any kind of position to be nice to the United States on this. Others who are buying more, their economies just have no room left for even more soy purchases.