30 October 2026, Shanghai: China’s crop protection technical materials climbed through the first three weeks of October, with the industry’s own price benchmark posting its first year-on-year gain in months, as regulators moved to stop manufacturers from selling below cost even as the sector’s biggest annual trade fair closed without major new deals.
The Sino-Agri Leading (SAL) technical price index, which tracks a basket of Chinese pesticide actives, stood at 75.25 on October 18, up 0.69 percent from a year earlier and 2.53 percent from the prior week. That reversed a reading of 73.79 the week before, which had still been down 1.26 percent year on year. Within the index, 34 percent of tracked products were higher than a year ago and 58 percent were lower, while on a week-on-week basis 35 percent rose and 16 percent fell, a sign the rebound is still uneven across chemistries.
Glyphosate, China’s largest-volume herbicide export, rose from a low of $3,782 a tonne (about 27,000 yuan) on September 11 to $4,318 a tonne (about 30,800 yuan) on October 16, a gain of $447 a tonne in about five weeks. Traders expect it to hold in a $4,169 to $4,467 a tonne range through the winter. Glufosinate moved further and faster: after reaching a year-high range of $8,189 to $8,859 a tonne in late September, it hit $10,423 a tonne by October 18, and the newer glufosinate-P variant jumped from $10,423 to $11,911 a tonne in a single week.
Chlorantraniliprole, priced off its K-amine intermediate, rose from roughly $32.76 a kilogram at mid-year to $41.69 a kilogram on October 18, against an industry average production cost of about $34,692 a tonne. Neonicotinoid insecticides also firmed: imidacloprid moved from $10,720 to $11,614 a tonne and acetamiprid from $9,380 to $10,125 a tonne, while thiamethoxam held near $8,338 a tonne. Upstream inputs tightened the floor under these prices, with Shandong yellow phosphorus rising from $3,975 to $4,281 a tonne and East China methanol from $384 to $591 a tonne.
The price firming coincided with the close of AgroChemEx (ACE) 2026 in Shanghai, which organizers said drew more than 100,000 visitors, a figure that has not been independently audited. Rather than a wave of new contracts, the fair closed quietly, with buyers more focused on the direction of raw material costs than on signing fresh volumes. One trader summed up the fourth-quarter mood as “price up, goods tight, tickets small,” reflecting smaller, more cautious order sizes even as list prices rise.
Behind the price move is a deliberate regulatory push. The China Crop Protection Industry Association (CCPIA), in a February 10 document (Zhongnongxie [2026] No. 20), had already asked bulk producers to anchor pricing to real costs. That was reinforced by a joint cost-accounting policy from the National Development and Reform Commission and the market regulator (Fagai Jiage [2026] No. 1303, issued September 3 and published September 10), plus draft nitro-chemistry safety rules from the Ministry of Emergency Management on September 11. At CCPIA’s 26th China Pesticide Industry Exchange on October 14, association president Yan Duanxiang called on bulk-product groups to carry out realistic cost measurement and observe cost and price discipline, a message read as a warning to producers still quoting below their own production costs.
China’s September customs data show the policy has not yet revived export volumes. Formulated pesticide exports under HS code 3808 totaled 248,000 tonnes in September, down 12.9 percent year on year (following declines of 11.7 percent in July and 20.5 percent in August), though export value fell less, down 6.8 percent to $782 million, because the average export price rose 7.0 percent to $3,151 a tonne. Over the first nine months of 2026, volume was still up 5.0 percent to 2.707 million tonnes and value up 10.0 percent to $8.09 billion, but the sales mix shifted: herbicide volumes rose only 2.3 percent while herbicide prices jumped 11.9 percent, insecticide volumes rose 20.4 percent while insecticide prices fell 14.1 percent, and fungicide volumes fell 5.6 percent while fungicide prices rose 6.3 percent. By destination, September shipments fell 42.4 percent to Brazil (42,700 tonnes) and 20.0 percent to the United States, reversing gains of 90.8 percent in July and 72.8 percent in August to that market, while Argentina slipped 8.2 percent.
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