Affected by the COVID19 pandemic,the structural changes of international cereal trade network are being concerned globally.By constructing the international food trade network of 125 major economies in the world from 1995 to 2018,this paper explores the evolution characteristics and formation mechanism of trade pattern.This study reveals:the network density,trade volume and agglomeration degree of the international cereal trade network are increasing,showing an increasingly “smaller” smallworld; the network has been evolved from an unbalanced and discrete structure with fewer hubs dominated by the United States to a balanced and clustered structure with multihubs distributed in the important cereal exporters,such as Russia,the United States,Thailand,etc.The empirical results based on temporal exponential random graph model show that the expansibility,triadic closure,stability in selforganization mechanism and the complementary relationship in relational embeddedness mechanism promote the formation of cereal trade relation.Furthermore,there is no evidence to support that competitive relationship can restrain cereal trade relation,which affirms the positivesum game nature of international cereal trade to a certain extent.The systematic analysis of the causal mechanism of international cereal trade network structure from macro to micro levels provides policy guidance to enhance China’s position as a hub in the network and ensure the stable development of global cereal trading system.