Early Reporting Suggests Decline in China Bean Planting Area and Production

Our initial survey of China’s prospective dry bean planting reveals that production in 2020 is estimated to be down by 9% with total volume of 174,500 MT. Planting area is estimated down 9% with total sowing area of 110,400 hectares. China’s dry bean planting season starts in early April in the Southwest and ends in early June in the Northeast . It is expected that the sowing area in the Southwest in 2020 is about the same as last year. The sowing season in the Northwest started the last week of May. Growers have been active planting light speckled kidney beans (LSKB), red speckled kidney beans (RSKB) and purple speckled kidney beans (PSKB) due to increased market demand. However, farmers have much less interest in growing black beans and white beans this year which have been basically been planted for export markets. As a result, sowing area for black beans has declined this year but the sowing area for LSKB, RSKB and PSKB is roughly at the same level as last year. China dry bean exports have continuously declined since 2010 except in 2016 due to drought in South America. China’s total exports of dry beans in 2019 were 172,000 MT, which is 17% down from 2018 and 37% down from 2017. Full details are available in the report posted on our members only web page.

Planting beans in Northeastern China