Giant jaws of a bulk-handling crane off-load South American soybeans from a tarp-covered ship docked at the east ocean oils and Grains Industries pier just up the Yangtze river from Shanghai. Soybeans were first domesticated by Chinese farmers around 1100 BCe and have been a staple of their cuisine ever since, not only producing cooking oil, tofu, and soy sauce, but also feeding half the world’s pigs, which are raised in China. The People’s republic was once proudly self-sufficient in soybeans but can no longer grow enough to feed its people and its pigs and is now the largest soybean importer in the world.
