Ding Xilu: Farmers have prospects in growing grain, and only then can grain production have good momentum

Core viewpoint: Ding Xilu, a netizen of China Economic Net, believes that these concrete measures not only protect farmers' grain-growing interests from being harmed and prevent their enthusiasm from declining, but also help safeguard national food security. Only by truly implementing them in accordance with national policies and putting all preferential agricultural policies into practice can farmers be helped to increase their incomes.

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Premier Li Keqiang of the State Council presided over an executive meeting of the State Council on November 11, determining measures to stabilize grain production and increase grain-growing incomes, and to safeguard food security and farmers' interests. The meeting pointed out that China's grain output has increased for consecutive years and achieved another bumper harvest this year, strongly supporting economic and social development and the improvement of people's livelihoods, but there are also problems such as a substantial increase in inventory and falling prices.

China's grain output has increased for consecutive years and achieved another bumper harvest this year. Relevant parties estimate that grain output in 2015 will hit a new high. Consecutive years of bumper grain harvests have strongly supported economic and social development and the improvement of people's livelihoods, and this is inseparable from farmers' active grain growing. In recent years, the central government has successively issued “No. 1 documents” and introduced various policies benefiting and facilitating farmers. Subsidies for “agriculture, rural areas and farmers” have increased year after year, effectively promoting the stable development of agriculture.

It is precisely because of these measures supporting and benefiting agriculture that farmers can grow grain with peace of mind and sell grain with confidence. Even when the returns from grain growing are very low, farmers still grow grain year after year without abandoning their land or letting it lie fallow. It is precisely these more than 200 million farmers who have made possible the good result of “eleven consecutive increases” in China's total grain output.

Behind farmers' active grain growing, there are also problems such as a substantial increase in inventory and falling prices, which have become farmers' “joys of a bumper harvest.” Since the beginning of autumn this year, the prices of corn and wheat in China's main grain-producing areas have all declined to varying degrees. Although declines in volume and price in local areas over a short period are a market rule, if staple grains fall sharply, they cannot be ignored, and the impact of “cheap grain hurting farmers” should not be underestimated.

If measures to stabilize grain and increase income are not introduced in a timely manner, the problem of grain-growing farmers finding it “hard to sell grain” will become more and more serious. More importantly, do not let the difficulty of selling grain break farmers' hearts. Once farmers' hearts are broken, restoring confidence will take much more effort. To protect farmers' grain-growing interests from being harmed and prevent their enthusiasm from declining, the first priority is to do everything possible to solve the difficulties farmers encounter in the process of “selling grain.”

The measures to stabilize grain and increase income determined at the executive meeting of the State Council held on the 11th can be said to be very timely. The meeting decided to increase investment in the construction of storage facilities, speed up the progress of grain warehouses under construction and their maintenance and renovation, additionally arrange inter-provincial warehouse transfer plans as needed, increase the transport of grain from the north to the south, introduce policies encouraging processing enterprises to enter the market to purchase grain, strictly investigate “IOUs” and the lowering of grades and pressing of prices, and prevent the difficulty of “selling grain”; steadily digest existing inventory and transfer eligible temporary stored corn into national one-time reserves; reform the grain price formation and purchase and storage mechanisms, improve subsidy policies for corn and soybeans, and continue to implement the minimum purchase price policy next year for ration varieties such as wheat and rice.