The ChinaPower page “How Severe Are China’s Food Security Challenges?” draws from a unique dataset compiled from two sources. Data on most food products was derived from FAOSTAT, which provides free access to food and agriculture data for over 245 countries and territories and covers all FAO regional groupings from 1961 to the most recent year available. Notably, ChinaPower excluded FAOSTAT trade data on certain agricultural products such as tobacco and animal hides that are not considered edible food products. FAOSTAT lacks data on trade in fish and related seafood products. For seafood trade, ChinaPower relied on the UN Comtrade database, which aggregates detailed global annual and monthly trade statistics by product and trading partner for use by governments, academia, research institutes, and enterprises.
China’s Food Trade with the World
Topic: Economics / Methodology / Social
Source: United Nations Comtrade
Source: United Nations Comtrade
Between 2003 and 2023, China’s food imports ballooned from $14 billion to $215 billion. View
China first became a net food importer in 2004, and in 2021, it became the world’s largest food importer, holding a food trade deficit of $127.5 billion. View
China imported some $56.8 billion worth of food from Brazil in 2023, making the South American country China's top source of food imports. View