I'm not sure what to make of this beyond the obvious, that China hasn't been able to feed itself for a while now. They are going into the markets large-by-large.
From Reuters via Yahoo Finance, December 10:
Chinese buyers have been making large purchases of French wheat and barley along with Ukrainian corn and barley in the last week, trade sources said, taking advantage of a pause in surging prices to cover some of their feed grain needs.
While the total volumes bought were not yet clear, the sources said importers had secured at least several hundred thousand tonnes of grain from France and Ukraine.
The Chinese buyers also made major purchases of Australian feed wheat that again represented at least several hundred thousand tonnes, some of the sources added.
The deals point to China's continued major grain import requirement, despite the arrival of its domestic corn crop and difficulties in its pig industry, and further illustrate the readiness of buyers to seize on falls in international prices.
Wheat futures soared to a nine-year high in the United States and a record peak in Europe last month, fuelled by concern about rain damage to Australia's harvest and Russian export curbs, before retreating sharply since last week. [GRA/] [GRA/EU]
For French wheat, buyers were understood to have booked between six and 10 vessels, or potentially up to 600,000 tonnes, for shipment mainly between January and March, six traders said.
That followed smaller deals for French wheat in mid-November for two or three vessels for shipment this month, they said.
The French wheat was expected to be used mainly for livestock feed, although some may be for milling markets, the traders added.
"French wheat is currently looking attractive in price to the Chinese after falling from its peaks," a European trader said.....
....MUCH MORE
