Despite China’s economic growth slowing to between 6% – 7%, Cargill Vice Chairman Paul Conway states that the country’s demand for foreign agricultural commodities will remain strong in the face of ongoing food safety scandals and a more food-savvy and demanding middle class. In addition, the country’s push to transform its pork production chain from being dominated by small holders to one of commercial scale operations which will need increasing amounts of grain-based animal feed will also drive its need for grain imports. In fiscal year 2014 Cargill posted sales of US$134.9 billion and based on its expectations for not only China, but wider Asian markets as well, expects its sales to double within seven to eight years driven by consumption in China, India, and Indonesia. Currently Cargill is building its fourth soybean processing plant in China and its recently operating fully-integrated poultry project in the country has the capacity to process 65 million birds per year and produce 176,000 tons of poultry products annually.
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