Brazil has long been the 800-pound gorilla competing with American farmers for global grain trade, seizing the title of world’s top soybean producer from the U.S. last decade and also grabbing the lion’s share of shipments to China, the biggest importer of the oilseed.
A more troubling question for U.S. agriculture is whether Brazil is about to bulk up another couple hundred pounds.
“Brazil continues to expand area and production” for corn and soybeans, Matthew Kruse said at the Farm Progress Show’s opening day Tuesday in Decatur, Ill. Kruse, an Iowa grower who also farms in Brazil, was part of a three-person panel, “Brazil vs the USA in the Global Grain Game.”
The Farm Future panel was the first for the 2025 show. The grain market conversation continues in the FPS Hospitality Building at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday with: Matt Bennett, Illinois farmer and co-founder of AgMarket.Net; Arlan Suderman, chief commodities economist, StoneX; Vince Reincke, an Illinois farmer and owner of Ag Partners LLC; and Bruce Blythe, senior editor at Farm Futures.
This year, as the trade relationship between Beijing and Washington soured, China further accelerated soybean imports from South America in the wake of Brazil’s record crop (Earlier this year, China had a 44% overall duty rate on U.S. soybeans, but the rate was recently dropped to 10% following a recent “truce.”)
In June, customs data shows China’s soybean imports from Brazil jumped 9.2% from a year earlier, bringing its purchases to 10.62 million metric tons, or about 87% of total imports, Reuters reported. China’s soybean imports from the U.S. rose 13% during June to 1.58 MMT.
Lack of China buying U.S. growing concerning
With fall harvest approaching, China would typically shift to securing fresh bean supplies from the U.S. But amid ongoing trade tensions between Beijing and the Trump Administration. In 2025, however, China has yet to commit to purchasing one bushel of new-crop soybeans.
That lack of Chinese interest is growing increasingly concerning, Kruse said. At one time, he noted, China routinely bought 1 billion bushels of U.S. soybeans per year.
China is “trying to send a message” to Washington, Kruse said.
“I don’t buy the narrative that China doesn’t need U.S. beans,” Kruse added. “They don’t want to buy everything from Brazil. At the end of the day, Brazil wants the best deal possible, and so the more options they have, the better. If we had competitively priced beans, I believe they would buy from us.”
Prospects for more big South American crops
Meantime, early indications reflect prospects for another mammoth crop year in South America in 2026 that will no doubt pose further competition for U.S. farmers on the global marketplace.
Earlier this week, U.S.-based consultant AgResource estimated Brazil’s 2025-26 soybean crop at a record 176.5 MMT (6.48 billion bushels), higher than USDA’s current projection of 175 MMT. The consultant also predicted Brazil’s planted soybean area will expand 2% to 120.3 million acres. If so, that would be the lowest increase in five years. Soybean planting in Brazil usually begins in September.
South America is already coming off a record 2024-25 soybean harvest that included an all-time high for Brazil, at 169 MMT, or 6.21 billion bushels, while Argentina produced 50.9 MMT, a 5.6% increase over last year.
Another panelist, Cesar Cruz, director of research at Advance Trading Inc., also sees further cropland expansion in Brazil, but at a slower pace compared to recent years. There’s still room to add crops to what’s now pastureland, but restrictions on rainforest destruction could limit expansion.
For the near-term, on the question of U.S.-versus-Brazil and the global trade landscape, “tariffs remain the wildcard,” Cruz added.