China's grain imports have shown an "N" growth in recent years.

Since the reform and opening up, China's grain import has experienced a stage of first growth, then decline, and then growth, generally showing an "N" trend.

From 1978 to 1996, China imported more than 10 million tons of cereals (including wheat, rice, corn, sorghum, barley, etc.) each year, and the main import product was wheat, of which 15 million tons were imported in 1989, accounting for 6 percent of China's wheat output in that year.

In 1996, China opened up the soybean market, and soybean imports increased year by year. Under a series of grain policy incentives and technological progress, domestic planting resources were transferred to grain production, and domestic grain production capacity increased rapidly. Foreign grain imports began to decline continuously.

Since 2010, with the rapid development of domestic animal husbandry and related grain processing industry, the import of corn (and downstream deep processing products) has increased sharply, driving China's grain import to rise again.

In 2013 and 2012, due to the need for variety adjustment, China imported 14.58 million tons of grain and 13.93 million tons of grain flour, an increase of 4.7% and 156.7% respectively over the previous year, and imported 63.38 million tons and 58.38 million tons of soybeans, an increase of 8.6% and 11.2% respectively over the previous year.