Farmers selling grain need to seize the right moment: sell when it is time to sell

A few days ago, Uncle Wu in the village took more than 3000 jin of rice to a grain processing factory in town to sell. When he came back, we asked Uncle Wu how the grain sale had gone. Uncle Wu shook his head and said: "Bad luck, bad luck, the grain price has fallen again. Two months ago it still sold for more than 150 yuan per dan, now it only sells for 130 yuan. If I had known the grain price would fall so much, I would have taken the grain to sell long ago. I lost several hundred yuan."

In rural areas, every year we can hear some sighs like Uncle Wu's about falling grain prices. In fact, such sighs are a manifestation of some farmers failing to keep up with the pace of the times and not adapting to the market economy. The main feature of a market economy is that the price of any commodity is regulated by the market. When a certain commodity is favored by the market and in short supply, its price often rises; conversely, when the supply of a certain commodity in the market is sufficient, the price will of course fall. This is also true when farmers sell grain. However, many farmers, when faced with the ups and downs of the market, cannot analyze and predict scientifically and always believe in old rules, such as "the more expensive it is, the less I sell," "sell when it falls, not when it rises," and so on. This is the so-called mentality of "holding back sales." It is precisely because of this mentality that farmers often end up suffering big losses.

Take 2015. In spring, grain prices were still at a relatively high level, and each dan of rice could sell for more than 150 yuan. By rights, this was a good time for grain-growing farmers to sell grain. But many people in our village were still reluctant to sell their rice, thinking the grain price would rise further. But after summer arrived, due to fluctuations in international grain prices and other reasons, our country's grain prices also began to fall. Farmers with foresight began to sell grain, but some farmers were still watching and waiting, always hoping the grain price would rebound and rise a bit more. After autumn arrived, as new rice was soon to come onto the market, the price of rice fell even more noticeably. Although some farmers hurried to sell grain, they still suffered no small losses.

Of course, there is no lack of farmers in rural areas who have good access to information and flexible minds. One villager in the village invented the "sell grain in batches method" based on his own experience, which is to sell grain in steps at the appropriate times according to changes in grain market prices. When the grain price is low (generally just after harvest) and money is truly needed, first sell only a small part of the grain; if the grain price keeps rising and reaches a certain level (generally two or three months after the grain is stored), then hurry to sell another batch; if the grain price remains at a certain level for a longer time and shows no trend of continuing to rise (generally during the rice transplanting season), then it is time to sell all the remaining grain, rather than waiting until the grain price falls to sell. Although this "sell grain in batches method" may not necessarily gain much advantage, it may to some extent reduce part of the losses. For farmers who are unsure about market conditions, it is also a simple method of selling grain.

In fact, the market is truly unpredictable. Who can control it 100 percent? But precisely because of this, we need even more to constantly understand market conditions. As the saying goes: keep your eyes on all six roads and your ears open to all eight directions. In our daily production and life, we should pay attention to market information from all sides and learn more knowledge about the market. Now is also the information age. Listening to more radio, watching more TV, and reading more newspapers and magazines can indeed make us farmers clear-eared and sharp-eyed, hearing far and seeing widely. Nowadays, quite a few rural households also have computers and internet access. This is even more a window to understand the world. Agricultural supply market conditions, grain market conditions, and agricultural experts' predictions about the market are all available on the internet. In short, scientific and technological information is extremely important for us farmers to prosper and get rich.