China's three major grains have been net imported for 4 consecutive years

Although China's grain production has achieved "11 consecutive years of growth" since 2004, agricultural trade has correspondingly shown a "dual normality" phenomenon of normalized trade deficit and normalized price inversion. This was learned by reporters at the 2015 (Third) China Grain and Food Security Strategy Summit held here.

According to Ye Xingqing, Director of the Rural Department of the Development Research Center of the State Council, who spoke at the summit, with the increase in grain imports, China's agricultural trade has posted a deficit for 11 consecutive years, and the scale of the deficit is gradually expanding; the agricultural trade deficit will become the norm.

⟦NL> Data show that last year China's grain imports exceeded 100 million tonnes for the first time. In recent years, while the trade deficit in livestock products has expanded rapidly, China's three major grain varieties - rice, wheat and corn - have also posted net imports for 4 consecutive years, while imports of corn substitutes such as sorghum and DDGS (corn distillers dried grains with solubles protein) have also grown substantially in recent years.

Experts believe that the agricultural trade deficit is related to the inversion of prices at home and abroad. Affected by factors such as the decline in international market prices of bulk agricultural products in recent years and the domestic minimum purchase price and temporary storage price remaining at high levels, the inversion of domestic and international agricultural product prices has become increasingly obvious. "Judging from the natural endowments and development stage of China's agricultural production, the cost of China's agricultural products will remain on an upward track in the future, and in the medium to long term the price inversion will become the norm."