Economics Of Soybean Industry In China From Industry Chain Perspective

Soybean industry impacts the development of planting, breeding, feed and food industry because of its long industry chain, and it plays an important role in the development of national economy. Since1996, soybean import quantity has been increasing year by year and the whole industry drives extensive attention of scholars. However, most of the existing research focused on individual and ostensible sector, such as soybean production, soybean processing, soybean trade or foreign capital expansion. There was few systemic research of the soybean economy. Lacking of systematic study, on one hand, may lead to an existing judgment that is one-sided or has great subjectivity, on the other hand, may cause many problems to be obscure, such as the operation system and the condition of the soybean economy, the influence factors of macro and micro of soybean industry development, the understanding of the regularity and judgment of the future, and so on. More importantly, there are lack of correct understanding and long-term judgment on some major issues, such as the competitiveness of soybean industry, foreign investment and industrial security, genetically modified, and so on. It leads to much unrealistic and not objective view.Therefore, the thesis studied comprehensively and systematically on each link of soybean production, circulation, processing, consumption, trade and relevant industrial policy from the perspective of industry chain and by historical and international comparison. It analyzed the factors affecting the development of all aspects of the soybean industry, revealed the evolution rule and economic characteristics of China’s soybean industry development, judged the trend judgment of development and change of China’s soybean industry in the future, and put forward the strategic measures of soybean industry development, in order to provide decision-making reference on promoting the further development of soybean industry in China.The results showed:(1) Overall, the situation of soybean industry is good in China, although the sector of soybean production has been a sharp decline for successive years since2010, the several links of consumption, trade, processing is booming. The production decline doesn’t mean the decline of the whole soybean industry.(2) The development of soybean production is slow. Yield level is the key factor that influences soybean production, under the condition of resource constraints, and the low soybean comparative benefit is the main cause of the decline in soybean production. We think that the soybean plantation area will continue to decline in the short term on the basis of concidering synthetically of economic and non-economic factors, but the amplitude of declining will be limited. Domestic soybean is not competitive, the problem can not be fundamentally solved based on protection and non-gm dislocation development, but improving yield is the key to enhance competitiveness of China soybean industry. (3) The improvement of income level, population growth and urbanization drive the rapid growth of the soybean consumption, the substitution effect of other oil (especially in palm oil) can slow down the soybean consumption growth to a certain extent, but the effect is not big. So there will be an increasing soybean demand growth in China in the short term. Moreover, it is mainly depend on import to meet domestic demand because of the lack of the domestic soybean supply.(4) The soybean circulation has formed a basic pattern which presents the diffusion from major production areas and southeast coastal areas to the whole country. Bean products are mainly circulated in origin and soybean oil and soybean meal are mainly circulated from the processing region to sales region. However, the soybean circulation infrastructure is backward and the circulation efficiency is low.(5) The crush is the main form of soybean processing. Soybean oil processing industry has formed the basic situation of tripartite confrontation:private enterprises, foreign-funded enterprises and state-owned enterprises. Domestic enterprises have advantages in the production capacity, soy raw materials processing, soybean oil production and protein production. However, overcapacity problem is still outstanding.(6) The trade pattern of more soybean import and less soybean export will not change for a long period. The rapid growth of demand and resource constraints is the main cause for the increasing of soybean imports. Moreover, the price factor is the main cause of soybean imports expanded rapidly in recent years. The concern about security of soybean industry is needless. As soybean imports did not influence the domestic soybean production and soybean farmer’s earnings, soybean farmer’s income is not only affected by, but also benefit from the planting structure adjustment. Foreign capital did not control the soybean processing industry, while the comprehensive strength of domestic soybean processing enterprise improved in the competition with foreign companies.Based on the above research results and the basic judgments, the soybean’s position has been fully realized in the sustainable development of grain production, maintaining the food safety and improving the nutrition and the strategic adjustment of agricultural structure. The following measures are provided for the sustainable development of China’s soybean industry:(1) Take full advantage of the resources and two markets (the international and domestic) to meet domestic demand.(2) Rely on scientific and technological progress to improve yield.(3) Build modern farming technology system to make planting area stable.(4) Focus on the development of high protein soybean production, and the genetically modified soybean production should be incorporated in study and policy considerations.