Brazil has sold 85% of its soybean crop, and a 10% tax keeps America's out. China's mills are short for the winter.

The stories

15 stories on this beat today.

Every story told the same way: what happened, who is involved, why it matters, how it works, the truth and the good news.

1. 01

   Brazil has sold 85% of its soybean crop, and a 10% tax keeps America's out. China's mills are short for the winter.

   85%

   of Brazil's soybean crop, already sold

   it was 78% at this point last year, so the beans China needs this autumn are mostly promised to other buyers [1]

   10%

   tax China charges on American farm goods

   private mills have avoided US cargoes since it came in, and are waiting to see whether Xi's US visit removes it [1]

   150-230 yuan

   lost on each tonne crushed, October to December

   about $22 to $34, and that is the loss with the 10% tax already taken off [1]

   $13.10

   a bushel for November soybeans in Chicago

   the price is up nearly 12% from its June low, lifted by bad US weather and Chinese state buying [1][3]

   What happened

   • China's private soybean crushers - the mills that press beans into cooking oil and the protein meal fed to farm animals - cannot cover the last three months of the year. [1]
   • Brazil's crop is nearly all sold, and American beans still carry China's 10% import tax on US farm goods. [1]
   • Brazilian farmers had sold 82% of this year's crop by the end of July, against 78% a year earlier, and an analyst at Safras & Mercado puts it near 85% now. [1]
   • Brazil's next harvest is not due until early 2027, so for the next few months the only large supply left is the American one. [1]
   • The mills are hoping Xi Jinping's visit to the United States this month gets the tax lifted. [1]
   • Jamieson Greer, the US trade representative, says there will be announcements on farm goods and non-tariff barriers at the summit, without saying what they are. [1][2]
   • Even without the tax, buying American beans for October to January would lose money.
   • Analysts put crushing 150 to 230 yuan a tonne in the red, about $22 to $34. [1]
   • Chicago soybean futures, the world's reference price, are up nearly 12% from their June low on poor US weather, Chinese state buying and fears of an El Nino. [1]
   • November beans settled at $13.10 a bushel and soybean meal at $355.10 a tonne on 4 September. [3]
   • Chinese state traders bought about 11 million tonnes of American soybeans after Xi met Donald Trump in May.
   • The private mills stayed out. [1]
   • Importers have booked 4.8 million tonnes for November, around 60% of what they expect to need, and December and January buying has barely started. [1]
   • Demand is falling at the other end too.
   • China is shrinking its pig herd this quarter to clear an oversupplied meat market, and pigs are what soybean meal feeds. [1]

   Who is involved

   • China's private soybean crushers the mills that press beans into cooking oil and animal feed; the biggest such industry in the world, and currently losing money on every tonne [1]
   • Sinograin the Chinese government's grain stockpiler; one analyst says its reserve auctions are the mills' only other way to keep plants running if the tax stays [1]
   • Jamieson Greer the US trade representative, who negotiates trade deals for the US government; he says farm goods will feature at the summit [1][2]
   • Brazil's soybean farmers the world's largest suppliers of soybeans; they sold most of this year's crop early, much of it to buyers other than China [1]
   • Rosa Wang an analyst at Shanghai JC Intelligence; she and three traders put crush margins deep in the red for autumn shipments [1]

   How it unfolded

   1. May after Xi meets Trump, Chinese state traders buy about 11 million tonnes of American soybeans; the private mills stay out [1]
   2. End of July Brazilian farmers have sold 82% of the crop, ahead of last year's 78% [1]
   3. 25 Aug Brazil's shipments to China are 2.6 million tonnes down on the year, while its shipments elsewhere are up 6 million [1]
   4. 3 Sep Greer says there will be announcements on farm goods and non-tariff barriers at the summit [1]
   5. This month Xi visits the United States, in the same weeks the American harvest comes in [1]

   Why it matters

   Watch whether the 10% tax comes off at the summit.

   Then watch whether anyone actually buys, because one Chinese mill said it would recalculate its margins first, and the sums are negative either way. [1]

   The truth

   • What is really going on China and the United States are about to negotiate over a 10% Chinese tax on American farm goods, and Chinese mill managers say that even without it, crushing American beans from October to January would lose them 150 to 230 yuan a tonne. [1]What is actually squeezing them is that Brazil's farmers sold about 85% of their crop early and China is culling pigs to clear an oversupplied meat market. [1]
   • Why it works on people A summit gives a story one visible thing to be about, so a tax that two governments can announce a decision on takes the attention, while a sold-out harvest and a shrinking pig herd have nobody to announce them. [1]
   • Who gains Brazil's soybean farmers — They sold about 85% of the crop early into strong demand, and Brazilian crushers at times paid them above export parity prices. [1]
   • Who gains Sinograin, the Chinese government's grain stockpiler — One analyst told Reuters that if the tax stays, its reserve auctions are the mills' only other way to keep plants running, which leaves it setting what they pay. [1]
   • Who pays China's private soybean crushers — Crushing loses 150 to 230 yuan a tonne on autumn shipments even before the 10% tax, and they have booked only about 60% of November demand. [1]
   • Nobody knows yet

     Whether Xi Jinping's US visit actually removes the 10% tax on American farm goods.

     Jamieson Greer, the US trade representative, has said only that there will be announcements on agriculture and non-tariff barriers, with no specifics, and China's commerce ministry did not answer Reuters. [1][2]

   • Nobody knows yet

     How much China would buy even if the tax went.

     Analysts put crush margins in the red for October-to-January shipments with or without it, and one Chinese mill told Reuters it would recalculate before deciding anything. [1]

1. 02

   Europe's crops now ripen weeks early

   What happened

   • Reuters looked at European crop data and found harvests arriving far earlier than they used to. [4]
   • Hermann Greif heads the Bavarian farmers' union in Upper Franconia.
   • He said his maize harvest has moved from around 14 September to the start of the month, and his wheat from mid-August to late July. [4]
   • A plant moves between growth stages by soaking up heat, so warmer air runs it through faster. [4]
   • France's farm office, FranceAgriMer, rated 27% of the grain maize crop good or excellent on 31 August, its worst score since records began in 2011. [4]

   Why it matters

   France's agriculture ministry expects maize production down 35% on last year, and analysts think it could halve to the smallest crop since 1976. [4]

   That lands first on European livestock farmers, who buy maize as feed.

   How it works

   The crop was sold before anyone needed it

   Brazil grew plenty of soybeans and China still cannot get any, because 85% of the harvest was promised to other buyers months ago.

   The twist

   A shortage does not need a bad harvest. It only needs a good harvest that somebody else already bought.

   Step by step

   1. 1 A crop is cut once a year, and its whole size is fixed that day
   2. 2 Buyers book it forward, contract by contract, months before they need it
   3. 3 By late summer most of the southern crop already belongs to somebody
   4. 4 A late buyer is not shopping the harvest, only what is left of it
   5. 5 So a shortage arrives in a year when plenty was grown

   The same force, elsewhere today

   Where this chain is also running, in today's other stories.

   • Duty-free beef arriving in the United States

     the same third step - American producers counted 86.2 million cattle in January and cannot add to that this year, so their government bought access to beef other countries had already raised

   • Big Food's promise to drop synthetic dyes

     step one on a different crop - the plants that make natural colour were planted for last year's demand, and no harvest already in the ground can grow 400% more

   • Europe trying to grow its own animal protein

     step four - even an extra 1.5 million hectares of peas and beans leaves European farms buying the remainder, at a soybean price about 150% higher

   • France's maize crop

     step one at its plainest - the summer set the size of the crop, and no decision taken in September changes what is standing in the field

   Where you've seen this

   Concert tickets

   the hall holds what it holds, and most seats are gone before the general sale opens

   School places

   a city's classrooms were built for the children born ten years ago, so a family arriving late takes what is spare

   Hospital beds in a bad flu winter

   the number of beds was set years earlier by a building budget, not by how many people fall ill this week

   The catch

   It only holds where the thing cannot be made faster. A factory can add a night shift. A field cannot add a summer.

   And the whole of it

   Everybody in this story bought sensibly. Brazil's farmers sold early because the price was good, China's state traders bought in May because the politics allowed it, and the private mills waited because the tax made waiting cheaper. What none of them could see from their own desk is that the sensible moves added up to a country short of beans in a year of plenty.

   The truth

   • Who pays French maize growers — Only 27% of the grain maize crop was rated good or excellent on 31 August, the worst in records starting in 2011, and the ministry expects production down 35%. [4]
   • Nobody knows yet

     How big France's maize crop will actually be.

     The French agriculture ministry forecasts a 35% fall against last year, while analysts expect closer to half, the smallest since 1976. Both figures are in circulation and the harvest is not in. [4]

1. 03

   Britain is not ready for a food shock

   What happened

   • The National Audit Office, the watchdog that checks how the British government spends money, said the country has not done enough to prepare for disruption to its food supply. [5]
   • Britain imports more than a third of its food and most of it arrives through four ports: Dover, Felixstowe, Southampton and London Gateway. [5]
   • The watchdog found that Defra, the department responsible, has spoken to food companies far less often since the pandemic. [5]
   • Its last national test of a food emergency was in 2023, and it left out most supply-chain businesses. [5]

   Why it matters

   Food is one of thirteen sectors the British government calls critical national infrastructure.

   The cold stores and transport hubs that keep it moving are not on that list, so their electricity is not protected in a blackout. [5]

   The truth

   • Nobody knows yet

     What Britain would actually do if its food imports were interrupted.

     The National Audit Office found Defra's last national test of a food emergency was in 2023 and left out most supply-chain businesses, and that local resilience forums say they have not been told what is expected of them. [5]

2. 04

   Europe cannot grow its way off imported soy

   What happened

   • European farms feed their animals on imported protein, mostly soybeans, and researchers modelled what would happen if that stopped. [6]
   • They tested a complete cut-off of protein imports to the European Union and the United Kingdom, measured against 2030.
   • Farmers would put an extra 1.5 million hectares under peas, beans and lupins, and it would still not replace the imports: soybean prices rise about 150% and livestock output falls 3%. [6]
   • What farms actually plant, the study found, follows the money rather than the agronomy. [6]

   Why it matters

   It is the same squeeze as the lead story, seen from the buyer's side.

   Europe's animals eat beans somebody else grew, and the paper finds policy support raises legume growing only moderately, with little effect on the market. [6]

   How it works

   step four - even an extra 1.5 million hectares of peas and beans leaves European farms buying the remainder, at a soybean price about 150% higher

   The idea, in story 02: The crop was sold before anyone needed it →

   The truth

   • Who gains European legume growers — Modelling a full cut-off of protein imports puts an extra 1.5 million hectares under peas, beans and lupins, with soybean prices up about 150%. [6]
3. 05

   Duty-free beef lands, and ranchers say it fixes nothing

   What happened

   • The United States began importing about 660 million pounds of beef free of tariffs on 1 September, and the arrangement runs for 90 days. [8]
   • Trump's proclamation says the meat must sell for 25% less than American beef. [8]
   • It is not steak.
   • It is lean frozen trimmings from among the 16 countries cleared to send raw beef to the US, ground with fattier American cuts into hamburger, a New York Times opinion piece argued this week. [7]
   • American producers counted 86.2 million cattle in January, the smallest herd since 1951. [8]

   Why it matters

   Beef cost 9.4% more in July than a year earlier, and Tennessee farmers selling spring-born calves say the imports push their price down while fuel, feed and vet bills do not move. [8]

   A herd takes years to grow, so nothing arriving inside 90 days builds one. [8]

   How it works

   the same third step - American producers counted 86.2 million cattle in January and cannot add to that this year, so their government bought access to beef other countries had already raised

   The idea, in story 02: The crop was sold before anyone needed it →

   The truth

   • Who gains Meat exporters cleared to sell raw beef to the United States — Their lean trimmings enter duty-free for 90 days from 1 September, into the smallest American cattle herd since 1951. [7][8]
   • Who pays Tennessee farmers selling spring-born calves — The duty-free import announcement pushed cattle prices down, while their fuel, feed and vet costs did not move. [8]
   • Nobody knows yet

     Whether shoppers will pay less for beef because of the 660 million pounds coming in duty-free.

     Trump's proclamation says the meat must sell for 25% less than American beef, and economists and producers quoted by Successful Farming say significant savings are unlikely. [8]

4. 06

   Big Food promised to drop synthetic dyes

   What happened

   • General Mills has now taken petroleum-based dyes out of every cereal it sells in the United States. [9]
   • Kraft Heinz, Nestle USA, Tyson, Hershey and Walmart have all made similar pledges for 2026 and 2027. [9]
   • A report for the National Confectioners Association, written by the research group RTI International, says the replacements may not exist. [9]
   • The US certified 21.4 million pounds of synthetic FD and C dyes in 2025, while the whole plant-colour market is about 12 million pounds. [9]
   • Plant colour is weaker, so matching a synthetic shade can take ten times as much of it. [9]

   Why it matters

   Industry people told RTI that a full switch would raise demand for plant colours by 400% to 500%, more than today's farms and processing plants can supply. [9]

   The promises fall due in 2027 and land on crops nobody has planted. [9]

   How it works

   step one on a different crop - the plants that make natural colour were planted for last year's demand, and no harvest already in the ground can grow 400% more

   The idea, in story 02: The crop was sold before anyone needed it →

   The truth

   • Who gains Sensient Technologies — The colour supplier is spending up to $250m on plant-colour capacity, and its chief executive says $100m of synthetic-colour revenue could convert at roughly ten times the volume, because plant colour is weaker. [9]
   • Nobody knows yet

     Whether the natural colours Big Food has promised can be grown at all.

     RTI International says a full US switch would raise demand for plant colourants by 400% to 500%, and that today's farms and processing plants could not support that without extensive new investment. Nobody has published what has actually been contracted. [9]

5. 07

   The oil shock took aid from 1.5 million children

   What happened

   • Save the Children said the oil price jump caused by the US war with Iran has added $13 million to what it costs to deliver aid. [10]
   • That is money which would otherwise have reached another 1.5 million children. [10]
   • The charity works in about 110 countries, and its health and nutrition programmes reached more than 30 million children last year. [10]
   • Willem Zuidema, its global supply chain director, said every spike in fuel prices raises the cost of every truck, every shipment and every box of supplies. [10]

   Why it matters

   Getting food to hungry people is mostly a transport bill, so a fuel price is a hunger number. [10]

   The International Energy Agency calls this the largest disruption to oil supplies in history, and poorer countries have been hit hardest. [10]

   The truth

   • Who pays The 1.5 million children Save the Children could not reach — The oil shock added $13m to the charity's delivery costs, and that is the money which would have reached them. [10]
6. 08

   Fivefold more nitrogen in, almost none back out

   What happened

   • Since the 1940s, factories have pulled unreactive nitrogen out of the air and turned it into fertiliser, which is why the world grows enough food. [11]
   • A review in Nature Reviews Earth and Environment gathered global nitrogen figures back to 1955 and found that the amount entering living systems each year has risen fivefold since the 1960s. [11]
   • What goes back to the atmosphere rose only 12% over the same stretch.
   • The difference stays where it was put: roughly 50 million tonnes a year has been building up on land since 1959. [11]

   Why it matters

   That build-up shows up as polluted soil, rivers and air, and it lands on whoever lives downstream of a fertilised field rather than on whoever spread it. [11]

   The truth

   • Who pays People living downstream of fertilised fields — Reactive nitrogen entering living systems is up fivefold since the 1960s while returns to the atmosphere rose 12%, so about 50 million tonnes a year builds up in soil, water and air. [11]
   • Nobody knows yet

     How much nitrogen is really piling up on land.

     The Nature Reviews authors put the build-up at roughly 50 million tonnes a year since 1959, and say land fixation and denitrification remain the largest uncertainties in the whole budget. [11]

7. 09

   Satellites weigh Egypt's water against its crops

   What happened

   • Researchers used 25 years of readings from MODIS, a NASA instrument that watches plant growth from orbit. [12]
   • They worked out how much plant matter Egypt's coastal drylands grow for each millimetre of water they lose. [12]
   • The answer varied hugely along the coast.
   • Thinly vegetated ground managed under 1.0 thousandths of a gram of carbon per millimetre of water; land reclaimed for farming reached 2.9. [12]
   • Cropland and reed beds did best, while spreading towns raised evaporation and cut efficiency. [12]

   Why it matters

   Egypt feeds itself partly on desert it reclaims, and the study puts a number on that choice: the same water grows nearly three times as much on reclaimed farmland as on bare ground. [12]

8. 10

   A soybean's own bacterium beats a soil fungus

   What happened

   • Southern blight is a soil fungus, Agroathelia rolfsii, that rots soybean plants at the stem and resists chemical control. [13]
   • Researchers took Pseudomonas JDE115, a bacterium that already lives inside soybean root nodules, and tested it against the fungus. [13]
   • In dishes and in greenhouse pots it stopped the fungal threads and collapsed the hard survival lumps the fungus forms, and treated plants stayed free of symptoms.
   • It attacks by several routes at once, including two airborne chemicals, 1-undecene and dimethyl disulfide. [13]

   Why it matters

   This is greenhouse work, not a field trial. [13]

   But it is the crop at the centre of today's lead story, and the candidate replacement for the fungicide was already living inside its roots. [13]

   The truth

   • Nobody knows yet

     Whether the soybean-nodule bacterium works in a field.

     The results come from lab dishes and greenhouse pots, and the paper reports no field trial. [13]

   Good news

   • A bacterium that already lives inside soybean roots stopped the fungus that rots soybean stems, in dishes and in greenhouse pots, with no fungicide.
9. 11

   Six Afghan villages get their canal back

   What happened

   • For decades the Taqi Baba intake carried irrigation water to six villages in Baraki Barak district, in Logar province, Afghanistan, and every flood season the river wrecked it. [14]
   • Farmers there grow wheat and barley through winter, then tomatoes, onions, maize and beans in summer, with alfalfa for their animals. [14]
   • When it broke they piled stones, brushwood and sandbags on the bank to push water back into the canal, sometimes for days, in the planting season. [14]
   • The UN's food agency rebuilt it in concrete in 2025, and this year's floods left it undamaged. [14]

   Why it matters

   Three hundred hectares of farmland and six villages depended on one structure on one river, and the failure arrived on schedule every year. [14]

   Good news

   • The UN's food agency rebuilt the Taqi Baba river intake in Logar province, Afghanistan, in concrete with sluice gates. Six villages used to lose their irrigation to the river every flood season; this year's floods left the new structure undamaged.
10. 12

    The US taxes the drones that spray fields

    What happened

    • The Trump administration imposed tariffs of up to 100% on imported drones on Thursday, aimed at Chinese manufacturers. [15]
    • Drones over 55 pounds, or carrying thermal imaging, pay the full 100%; smaller ones pay 25%. [15]
    • The US Commerce Department had judged reliance on foreign drones and their parts a national security risk. [15]
    • Separately, the US telecoms regulator, the FCC, is weighing restrictions on common drone technology including thermal imaging and aerosol spraying. [15]

    Why it matters

    Aerosol spraying and heat imaging are farm jobs, so a rule written about national security reaches the machines that put chemicals on crops and look for thirsty patches in a field. [15]

11. 13

    A gut chemical is driving a liver disease

    What happened

    • Primary sclerosing cholangitis is a long-running inflammation of the bile ducts that can end in liver failure or bile-duct cancer, and it travels with bowel disease and a disturbed gut community. [17]
    • Researchers writing in Nature Metabolism report that imidazole propionate, a compound gut bacteria make from the amino acid histidine, is a driver of it. [17]
    • People with the condition carry more of it in their blood, and higher levels predicted shorter survival.
    • Given to mice over time, it produced liver inflammation and scarring. [17]

    Why it matters

    It is a traceable path from what gut bacteria are fed to damage in an organ. [17]

    It also names the compound, rather than the bacteria, as the thing a drug could aim at. [17]

12. 14

    A fermenting bacterium shields onions from cadmium

    What happened

    • Cadmium is a toxic metal that collects in farm soil and stunts what grows there.
    • Researchers exposed onions to rising doses of cadmium chloride and watched roots and shoots shrink. [18]
    • They then added Lactiplantibacillus plantarum 10CH, a lactic acid bacterium of the kind used to ferment food. [18]
    • It survived cadmium up to 100 micromolar, and its genome carries genes for binding, storing and pumping the metal out. [18]
    • Treated onions grew larger, held less cadmium, and recovered amino acids the metal had stripped away, among them arginine and glutamic acid. [18]

    Why it matters

    Cadmium reaches people through crops grown in contaminated ground, so a soil microbe that keeps it out of the plant keeps it off the plate. [18]

    Good news

    • Onions grown in cadmium-poisoned soil put out bigger roots and shoots and took up less of the metal after researchers added a lactic acid bacterium of the kind used to ferment food.
13. 15

    What to eat for the bacteria in your mouth

    What happened

    • About 700 species of bacteria live in a human mouth, alongside viruses and fungi, and each prefers a different surface: the enamel of a tooth, the tongue, or the crevice between tooth and gum. [16]
    • Streptococcus mutans sits on enamel and turns sugar into the acid that eats it. [16]
    • The BBC reported on research into feeding the useful species rather than the harmful ones, and named fruit and cheese among the foods that help. [16]

    Why it matters

    Dental advice is usually about brushing and cutting sugar.

    This is the same problem read as a question about what goes in rather than what is left out. [16]