In COVID-19After the outbreak, there were severalGrain-producing countries with small exports hastily announced a ban or suspension.Grain exports have triggered some people to China.Concerns about food security. Recently, the China Grain Industry Association organized a number of senior experts in the industry to seriously study and judge this and agreed that China's grain supply is adequate.It is totally unnecessary for consumers to hoard grain in excess of their consumption.
Sufficient inventory has great potential to increase production.
According to experts, China's grain inventory is divided into reserve inventory and commodity inventory. Reserve inventory can be divided into two categories: central reserve and local reserve. Central reserves have always been available, but the management methods are different in different periods after the founding of New China. After the reform and opening up, we carried out the reform of grain commercialization and market-oriented management, and began to create a new grain reserve system that meets the requirements of marketization. The State Council approved the establishment of the State Grain Reserve Bureau in 1990 and the China Grain Storage Corporation in 2000. After the world food crisis in 2008, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council took advantage of the situation to establish and improve local government reserves at the provincial, municipal and county levels. a modern grain reserve system dominated by central reserves, supported by provincial reserves, and based on city, county, enterprise and social reserves has been formed, which has played an important role in ensuring national food security as a market stabilizer and ballast stone.
Proceeding from the national conditions and grain conditions, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council adhere to the system of responsible grain governors, strictly requiring that, on the premise of ensuring quality, the amount of reserves stored for three months in the main grain producing areas, six months in the main selling areas, and four and a half months in the balanced area of production and marketing, so as to ensure local food security and emergency supplies in terms of system and policies.
Grain commodity inventory is also divided into two parts. First, grain trade, processing and feed enterprises are used for market circulation, trade, processing and feed grain. All kinds of grain enterprises mainly rely on millions of grain brokers to go from village to house to purchase and collect grain sources for them. Second, in order to ensure the increase of farmers' production and income, the state invests the temporary stored grain purchased by grain enterprises to support the market, and the state directs the relevant national grain wholesale market to be put into the market by public auction according to the market supply and demand situation. This part of the market grain is purchased in a large amount every year.
Experts say there is no problem with the existing stocks of rice and wheat to feed 1.4 billion people across the country for a year. If the supply abroad is cut off and there is no grain outside, 1.4 billion Chinese people will still have food to eat, and the bowls are mainly filled with Chinese rice noodles, so there will be no shortage of grain.
This year, China has a warm climate from south to north, which is conducive to the growth of food crops. In the south, early rice seedlings have been raised for transplanting, wheat in the north is growing better than in previous years, and a bumper harvest of summer grain is in sight. If there were no major natural disasters, this year would be another good year for a bumper harvest, and the whole country should be full of confidence in this.
Experts pointed out that in 2019, China's total grain output reached a new high of 664 million tons, of which the total grain output was 614 million tons, an increase of 0.6 percent over the same period last year. A sustained increase in grain production will provide a solid physical guarantee for food supply.
First, there is a stamina for increasing grain production. Since the reform and opening up, China's grain has continued to grow rapidly, and has successively jumped to four major levels of 300 million tons, 4 billion tons, 500 million tons and 600 million tons. Now the total output has exceeded 600 million tons for five consecutive years, accumulating huge potential for increasing production.
Second, national commodity grain bases and major grain producing counties can play a key role. China's grain production is concentrated in the central and eastern regions from the northeast to Hainan. Since the reform and opening up, the state has invested heavily in the construction of several major commodity grain bases in the North China Plain, the Huang-Huai-Hai Plain and the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, and has identified more than 800 major grain producing counties. These grain bases and major producing areas will play a key role in future grain growth.
Third, the progress of agricultural grain science and technology will provide strong support for increasing production. The contribution rate of China's agricultural and grain scientific and technological progress to the grain industry has increased from 2.7% at the beginning of the reform to 58.3% in 2018. For example, in terms of the cultivation of improved varieties, Yuan Longping's hybrid rice, Li Zhensheng's hybrid wheat, and Li Denghai's hybrid corn, coupled with the promotion and application of improved varieties cultivated in many places, have contributed to the high yield and bumper harvest of the three staple grains. It has effectively played a role in promoting the primary productive force. In the future, with the development and application of high and new technologies such as bioengineering, the role of science and technology in increasing grain production will be more prominent.
Strong processing ability, stable price of goods in circulation market
Experts stressed that since reform and opening up, China has gradually restored and improved a grain market system with complete categories, complete functions and covering the whole country, with spot, futures, wholesale, stock market, and finance performing their respective functions, which has played a fundamental role in ensuring grain supply. For example, there are ten spot wholesale trading centers for national designated sales and regional sales, two international grain futures markets in Zhengzhou and Dalian, urban and rural supermarkets and bazaars dominated by finished grain and oil sales, e-commerce, online shopping and door-to-door logistics and distribution in cities throughout the country, and a number of large backbone grain and oil enterprises listed in domestic and foreign securities markets.
In recent years, there is a relative surplus of grain in the world and the price of grain in the international market is flat, which is very beneficial for China to make full use of both international and domestic markets and two kinds of grain resources to develop itself. For the purpose of protecting farmers' production and income, the state persisted in supporting the market and purchasing, resulting in a price upside down in which the domestic grain price was higher than the international grain price, and the national grain inventory was saturated and the grain supply was in a stage of surplus. This situation of oversupply also makes domestic grain prices do not flourish and operate smoothly. Although the spread of the epidemic will have an adverse impact, it will not cause a big storm on the whole.
Experts said that so far, the daily processing capacity of China's grain processing enterprises included in the statistical scope is 3 billion jin or 1.5 million tons of rice and 1.6 billion jin or 800000 tons of wheat, which can fully meet the daily rice noodle needs of 1.4 billion people. Since 2008, the state has ordered the provincial governments to formulate and implement emergency plans to ensure local food security, and established an emergency response mechanism. At present, the 37 key grain and oil processing enterprises identified by the state as the guarantee and supply cooperation mechanism have all resumed work, and 4649 of the country's 5388 emergency processing enterprises have resumed work, reaching the capacity of processing 487000 tons of rice and 465000 tons of wheat per day. Cofco has given full play to the advantages of the whole industry chain and made comprehensive efforts in rice, noodle and oil processing; state-owned grain enterprises such as the Cofco Group have actively resumed production and continued to contribute to ensuring supply and stabilizing the market; and private enterprises such as Hebei Wudeli Group have persisted in production since the epidemic. Recently, many enterprises have resumed work one after another to meet the supply of rice, noodle and oil rations for residents.
Diversification of international food sources to make up for the shortcomings before starting out
Experts pointed out that China is not only the most populous country in the world, but also the largest grain producer, importer and consumer. In 2017, China's grain imports reached a peak of 130 million tons, which has declined in the past two years. In 2019, China imported more than 110 million tons of grain, of which 88.51 million tons were soybeans, accounting for 79.4 percent of the total; 3.49 million tons of wheat, 2.55 million tons of rice; 4.79 million tons of corn, and the rest were barley, sorghum, grain flour and miscellaneous grains and beans.
From the analysis of the degree of external dependence of grain, soybean is the highest. In 2019, China's soybean output reached 18.1 million tons, a record high, but only accounted for 17% of the annual consumption, soybean external dependence is still as high as 83%, must be imported to meet domestic demand. China's soybean imports peaked at 95.53 million tons in 2017 and 88.51 million tons in 2019, a decrease of 7.02 million tons, or 9.3 percent, compared with 2017, supporting the development of domestic soybeans. In 2019, the degree of external dependence of rice is 1.8% and that of wheat is 2.3%. The import of rice and wheat is mainly for the adjustment of varieties. The combination of these two major rations is about 2%, with little impact.
In addition, 9.53 million tons of edible vegetable oil were imported in 2019, an increase of 51 per cent over 2018. The most fundamental reason for this situation still lies in the huge demand for life of domestic residents. China counts soybeans according to grain, while internationally, soybeans are regarded as oil crops. The direct purpose of importing soybeans in China is to extract oil. at the same time, soybean meal, a by-product of oil extraction, is used as the raw material for the production of all kinds of feed, which is more cost-effective and more economical than importing soybean oil and soybean meal alone.
What must be soberly understood is that China's moderate import of grain actually imports the two scarce resources of arable land and fresh water for grain production. The per capita cultivated land in China is only 1.35mu, less than 40 per cent of the world average, and the per capita fresh water is only 2300 cubic meters, which is only 1 per cent of the world average. The lack of these two kinds of resources is a major constraint for our country to reach the strategic goal of moderately developed countries in the next step. As for those countries that have banned or restricted grain exports, at present, they do not pose a major threat to the world grain market and China's grain imports, but they are also worthy of our close attention to deal with them calmly.
Experts believe that China's anti-epidemic war has not only demonstrated to the world the advantages of China's good social organization and strong action ability, but also exposed some shortcomings that have always existed in China's grain industry. For example, grain production, trade, processing, logistics and other links are small and scattered, extensive management, high operating costs, less scientific and technological content, low degree of intensification, poor economies of scale, and unbalanced development of new business type, such as e-commerce, online shopping, logistics and distribution. Many grain enterprises lack core competitiveness and have not really formed a whole grain industry chain from the field to the table. There is an urgent need to gradually make up for these shortcomings and improve innovation in the course of deepening reform. In the future, we need to make efforts to build a new type of aircraft carrier and joint fleet for China's grain, earnestly enhance its core competitiveness and international influence, train leaders in the grain industry with international strategic vision and modern enterprise spirit, and realize the grand wish of revitalizing the grain industry, ensuring supply, promoting safety, and seeking food for the benefit of the people's livelihood.