Multiple public offerings intensively applying for agricultural-themed ETFs

Securities Times Reporter Zhao Mengqiao

Recently, multiple fund companies have intensively filed for ETFs focused on agriculture themes such as grains and livestock farming.

On March 31, Ping An Fund applied for the Ping An CSI Agriculture Themed Index Initiator Fund. On March 27 and 26, Pudong Securities Ansheng Fund and GF Fund respectively filed for the Guozheng Grain Industry ETF. In just March alone, more than 10 ETFs have been filed, mainly focusing on sub-sectors like grains and livestock farming. A fund manager pointed out that the recent concentrated filings of related ETFs reflect a consensus among institutions on the fundamentals and policy catalysts of the sector, recognizing its medium- to long-term allocation value and seizing the early opportunity for deployment.

In the secondary market, the scale of related thematic ETFs has almost all increased since the beginning of the year. GF CSI Agriculture Themed ETF’s shares increased by over 1.08B, Penghua Guozheng Grain Industry ETF’s shares grew by more than 985 million, and other ETFs such as Invesco Great Wall Agriculture, Livestock, and Fish ETF and Tianhong CSI Agriculture Themed ETF saw increases of over 739 million and 639 million shares respectively. Additionally, amid overseas geopolitical turmoil from late February to mid-March, the A-share agriculture sector remained strong, with several ETFs rising over 10% during the period, becoming a safe haven for capital inflows.

Several public fund managers pointed out that the main driver of the agriculture sector’s rally is primarily due to the fertilizer sector, whose strong performance results from a confluence of “seasonal demand + cost push + geopolitical factors.”

Harvest Fund stated that the late Spring Festival in 2026 and the official start of the spring planting season in March directly boosted demand for fertilizers and pesticides, supporting product prices and corporate profits. Meanwhile, conflicts in the Middle East caused fluctuations in oil and gas prices, increasing production costs for nitrogen fertilizers and other high-energy-consuming fertilizers. The market’s transmission chain follows energy—chemical—agricultural inputs, establishing a cost-driven price increase logic. Additionally, segments like phosphate chemicals are shifting from pure cyclicality to a “resource + growth” logic, with some varieties possessing strategic resource attributes, such as phosphate mines, whose value is being reassessed under geopolitical security concerns, driving sector valuation restructuring.

Invesco Great Wall Fund pointed out that agricultural products are also a key focus of this round of “anti-involution” (counteracting excessive competition). As industries like pork, aquaculture, and grains respond to policy calls and actively reduce capacity, supply is expected to improve, leading to a rebound in corporate profits.

Harvest Fund analyzed that, currently, the agriculture sector, as a broad concept, shows clear differentiation in the fundamentals of its core sub-sectors:

In seeds, policy orientation and technological innovation are the main driving forces. The 2026 No. 1 Central Document continues to emphasize food security and explicitly promotes the industrialization of biological breeding. Harvest Fund believes that top-level policy design has shifted from stable production to increasing yields, with commercialization of biological breeding accelerating. Although grain prices fluctuate in the short term, expectations of loose global liquidity and inventory digestion support medium-term prices. Leading seed companies, with technological barriers, are expected to realize performance through market share gains amid industry reshuffling.

The fertilizer and pesticide sectors are expected to maintain a tight supply-demand balance. Recently, phosphate fertilizer prices remain high, ensuring profitability for companies, with cost support continuing to strengthen.

The livestock sector is in a typical early-stage layout phase. The pig breeding industry is currently in a “loss bottoming” stage, with pig prices around 12–13 yuan/kg, below the approximate 14 yuan/kg cost line. Ongoing losses combined with policy guidance are driving a clear trend of capacity reduction. The market’s core expectation is that “capacity reduction will lead to future supply contraction.” As the breeding sows approach policy targets, the cyclical reversal is gathering momentum, and the sector has excellent defensive and counterattack attributes.

MACD golden cross signals have formed, and these stocks are showing good upward momentum!