TAIPEI, TAIWAN — After feed demand weakened last year in Taiwan due to animal diseases, consumption is expected to rebound in the 2023-24 marketing year, leading to higher soybean imports, according to a report from the Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) of the US Department of Agriculture.

Soybean imports are projected to increase by 3.5%, to 2.65 million tonnes, to address the increased in feed demand, which the FAS said is “based on recovery in both the hog and poultry sector.”

Soybean production in Taiwan is minimal (around 6,000 tonnes) due to the predominance of rice and other crops, lack of available farmland and the competitiveness of imports, the FAS said. But output has grown from basically zero production in 2012.

Taiwan faces several obstacles regarding soybean imports. The FAS noted that in the first half of the current marketing year, logistics issues in both the Panama Canal and Red Sea region have made receiving bulk shipments from the United States, one of its biggest soybean suppliers, challenging. Also, a measure put in place by the Taiwanese government in 2022, which waved business takes on imported soybeans to stabilize commodity prices and reduce inflationary pressures, is set to expire in June 2024, the FAS said in the report.