China's wheat feeding to pigs and poultry has dented demand for alternate feeds and clouded the market outlook for soybean meal and other key ingredients used by the country's massive feed sector, analysts and traders said.
According to Reuters, Chinese feed producers have sharply raised wheat purchases in the past several months to replace corn, which has rallied by more than a third in the past year to a rare premium over wheat following a drop in corn output and state stockpiles last season.
Greater feed use of wheat, which has more protein than corn, has also cut demand for soymeal, the main protein source in livestock rations, putting further pressure on local crushing margins and raising questions about China's appetite for soybeans just as U.S. farmers gear up to commit more than 87 million acres to the crop.
Read more at Reuters.
