Corn Becomes the Focus of Structural Adjustment: A Third of the Nation's Corn Acreage May Be Converted from Grain to Forage

In Shandong, a major grain-planting province, more than 80% of grain corn is used as livestock feed, while the nation's feed grain still depends on imports of 100 million tonnes per year. Under the “food security” strategy, grain used for livestock feed has been brought into policy consideration.

In a recent public reply from the Ministry of Agriculture to a proposal by the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference at this year's “Two Sessions,” it stated that it would draw up the “Sickle Bend” Region Corn Structure Adjustment Plan (2016-2020) to adjust the corn planting structure in that region.

It is understood that the “Sickle Bend” region includes the cold Northeast region, the northern farming-pastoral ecotone, the wind-sand arid region of the northwest, the area along the Taihang Mountains, and the rocky desertification region of the southwest, where the year-round corn planting area accounts for about 1/3 of the national total.

On August 28, Vice Minister of Agriculture Yu Xinrong, while investigating corn planting structure adjustment in Inner Mongolia, said that next year the four provinces and autonomous regions of the Northeast should strive to achieve the goal of reducing corn acreage by more than 10 million mu.

Corn Becomes the Key to This Round of Structural Adjustment

Agricultural production is suffering from over-development and long-term over-exploitation, and “transforming the mode and adjusting the structure” has become the only way out.

On the one hand, the multiple cropping index of agricultural resources is high, there is no idle farmland in all four directions, and the string of resource use is being pulled tighter and tighter; on the other hand, agricultural non-point source pollution is worsening, agricultural ecosystems are degrading, and the carrying capacity of the ecological environment is getting closer and closer to its limit. Agricultural development faces two “tightening bands” - resource conditions and the ecological environment - and accelerating the transformation of the development mode to achieve sustainable development is urgent and brooks no delay.

In this round of agricultural structural adjustment, the adjustment of corn has become the key.

Minister of Agriculture Han Changfu said that corn planting structure adjustment is the key and focus of this round of agricultural structural adjustment, the focus of corn planting structure adjustment is the Northeast region, and the four provinces and autonomous regions of the Northeast must reduce corn planting area next year.

“In fact, from the broad definition of ‘food security,’ livestock feed must be taken into consideration. The dietary structure has already undergone great changes, and residents consume more meat, eggs and milk, which means a large amount of feed is needed,” an official from the Ministry of Agriculture told reporters. “At present there is still a relatively large gap in domestic feed grain. Through corn planting structure adjustment, developing silage corn that can be used as feed will help the coordinated development of planting and breeding.”

Reporters learned that according to the deployment, next year the four provinces and autonomous regions of the Northeast will reduce corn acreage by more than 10 million mu. The specific direction will be to reduce corn in high-latitude and arid areas, expand the planting of drought-tolerant miscellaneous grains and beans, give consideration to both grain and feed, develop silage corn, reduce corn planting in rocky desertification areas, develop fruit tea and forage grass, and change continuous corn cropping to grain-bean rotation.

A Third of the Nation's Corn Land Awaits Reduction

In the practice of adjusting Shandong's corn planting structure through “grain-to-forage conversion,” it used to take two mu of grain corn land to raise one cow, but after implementing silage corn planting, it now takes one mu of land to raise one cow.

Statistics show that 80% of Shandong's grain corn, 15% of its wheat and 45% of its crop straw are used as livestock and poultry feed, and the total nutrients and production efficiency provided by this indirect production method are significantly lower than those of directly producing forage grass.

“Grain-to-forage conversion” has become one direction for corn planting structure adjustment. In the Ministry of Agriculture's plan, a third of the nation's corn planting area has been included in the scope of adjustment.

On August 25, in the Ministry of Agriculture's Reply to Proposal No. 3451 (Agriculture and Water Resources No. 297) of the Third Session of the 12th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, it was mentioned that it was “organizing experts to draw up the ‘Sickle Bend’ Region Corn Structure Adjustment Plan (2016-2020),” and the “Sickle Bend” region includes the cold Northeast region, the northern farming-pastoral ecotone, the wind-sand arid region of the northwest, the area along the Taihang Mountains, and the rocky desertification region of the southwest, where the year-round corn planting area accounts for about 1/3 of the national total.

In fact, the “Sickle Bend” region mentioned in the reply to the proposal was also the first regional division proposed by the Ministry of Agriculture. On the one hand, it borrowed a professional term from steel processing, and on the other hand, it was a vivid description of the region.

At the meeting held on August 28 to implement corn structure adjustment in some provinces, 13 provinces including Inner Mongolia, Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang participated. According to industry estimates, the corn sown area of these 13 provinces accounts for about 70% of the national corn sown area.

Analyst Jian Min believes that this reply to the CPPCC proposal further clarified and narrowed the scope of the region for reducing corn acreage.