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RIPPEY, Iowa -- China's imports of soybeans, a boon for U.S. farmers in recent years, are expanding to include South American farmers, raising the prospect that U.S. exports of the protein-rich beans to China may have peaked.

U.S. soybean shipments to China had a value of $2.3 billion last year, more than double the 2001 total, making soybeans the third-largest U.S. export item to China, behind aircraft ($3.8 billion) and semiconductors ($3.4 billion). The rapid gains may be ending as other nations vie for the Chinese market. According to the U.S. Agriculture Department, U.S. exports to China during the 2005-06 U.S. soybean marketing year will fall to 9.5 million metric tons from 11.8 million metric tons a year earlier.

Just as U.S. farmers did earlier this decade, South American farmers have stepped up soybean production and exports. This year, South America will increase production to 102 million metric tons, up 42% from 2001. South American soybean exports should reach 39 million metric tons this year, up 50% from 2001.

Meanwhile, demand from Europe for U.S. soybeans is falling. In 2005, Europe imported two million metric tons of U.S. soybeans, down from eight million metric tons in 1996. From 1994 to 2005, soybean prices fluctuated from $167 a metric ton to $291 a metric ton.

How the U.S. and South America became main suppliers of soybeans to a country where soybeans are a native crop and are consumed in larger quantities than in the U.S. reflects one of the unexpected developments in China's expansion: Rising prosperity is outstripping the country's ability to meet demand internally for certain basic commodities.

To grow more soybeans, Chinese farmers would have to buy more land or convert land used for other crops. With land prices high and the amount of arable land limited, the cost of expanding domestic production is often too expensive. Chinese farmers can't easily convert existing crops to soybean production because of climate and weather conditions. As a result, China is importing soybeans from countries where they are less-expensive to produce.

"It's the magic that free trade brings to the world," says Joel L. Naroff, president and chief economist at Naroff Economic Advisors. China's economy has fattened up by exporting what it can produce cheaply. And now, that wealth has translated into an important market for some American farmers.

"Chinese prosperity is spectacularly exploding," says Phil Laney, China director of the U.S. Soybean Export Council, an organization that promotes U.S. soybeans abroad. As personal income increases, Chinese citizens want to eat more meat, especially fish and pork. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the Chinese aquaculture industry produced 41 million tons of fish in 2004, up from 17 million tons in 1994.

As consumer demand for meat increases, China needs more soybeans to produce animal feed, fish meal, cooking oil and other soy-based foods.

That has been good news for Roy Bardole, a 63-year-old soybean farmer in Rippey, Iowa, about 50 miles northwest of Des Moines. In 2005, Mr. Bardole's 1,800-acre farm produced 1,090 metric tons of soybeans, which were purchased by nearby cooperatives and sold to large agricultural-exporting conglomerates such as Archer-Daniels-Midland Co. and Cargill Inc. "After Europe stopped buying soybeans from America, the market suffered. Then China came along," Mr. Bardole said. "When China [became] an aggressive buyer, we had a good year. The price of beans was high enough that we actually made money."

A drought this year in the Midwest shouldn't significantly change the U.S. pricing or export picture. A hot and dry summer is expected to lower U.S. production to 2.93 billion bushels, down 5% from last year. The price should remain between $5 and $6 a bushel because of the overhang from last year's harvest.

Chinese farmers traditionally fed their pigs and chickens with leftover food and ground grains. The old method wasn't fit for mass production, which is why farmers are moving to soybean-based feed. Since the per-capita consumption of meat in China increased threefold in the past decade, livestock began eating all the soybeans China could produce domestically.

China's accession into the World Trade Organization in 2001 played a role in increasing soybean exports to the country. In the mid-1990s, China lowered its tariff on soybeans to 3% in anticipation of signing the accession agreement, which prevents China from raising tariffs because of domestic pressure, says Francis Tuan, senior economist at Economic Research Service, a unit of the U.S. Agriculture Department.

U.S. farmers hope to expand the Chinese market for soybeans. Twelve years ago, the Soybean Export Council began persuading Chinese fresh-water-fish farmers to use a soybean-based feed instead of ground fish. The soybean-based feed, which floats, is cheaper than other commercial feeds and more environmentally friendly than crushed fish, which sinks to the bottom of ponds. The council wants to convince offshore-fish farmers, who breed fish in cages that sit in the sea, to use soybean-based feed as well. That industry produced 500,000 tons of fish in 2004 and has been expanding at an annual rate of 15% to 20%.

Mr. Bardole, who is a board member of the United Soybean Board, an organization that oversees the money used by the Soybean Export Council, traveled to China last September to look at the ocean-fish-cage project. He believes that ocean-fish-cage farming has potential not only in China, but also in the U.S., which imported $12 billion of fish last year.

Even with the strong sales to China, soybean farming remains a low-profit business. From 2002 to 2005, the Bardole family's average annual taxable income was $20,000, of which $12,500 came from government farm subsidies. The size of the subsidy has remained constant even in the midst of China's buying spree because farm income hasn't changed much over the years.

Mr. Bardole has high hopes about international trade. "We are told that India is the next China," he said.