Corn planting area to be reduced as a priority, overall approach to agricultural adjustment has taken shape

Pan Wenbo, deputy director of the Planting Industry Management Department of the Ministry of Agriculture, recently disclosed that a new round of overall thinking on agricultural adjustment, led by the Ministry of Agriculture, has been formed. In the next step, in accordance with the food security strategy of “storing grain in the land” and “storing grain in technology,” it will adhere to “market-oriented, technology-led, and ecological protection first,” enhance production capacity, and form an agricultural pattern of coordinated grain, economic crop, and feed production, combining planting and breeding, combining agriculture and animal husbandry, and integrating planting and breeding. He stated that the self-sufficiency rate for staple grains is hoped to remain at 100%, and the self-sufficiency rate for cereals at above 95%. At the same time, cotton, oil, and sugar must also be stabilized, the self-sufficiency rate of cotton must basically meet domestic consumption, and the self-sufficiency rate of edible oil must be stabilized at above 30%.

According to a December 3 report from Economic Observer Online, Pan Wenbo made the above remarks while attending the “Third China Grain and Food Security Strategy Summit.” He stated that the focus of the new round of grain structure adjustment is to reduce the planting area of corn, and the key areas for adjustment are “non-advantageous regions,” namely the cold and cool region of Northeast China, the agro-pastoral ecotone of northern China, the windy, sandy, and arid region of the northwest, the area along the Taihang Mountains, and the rocky desertification area of the southwest. These areas are not only typical dryland farming areas, but also ecologically fragile areas, and many are agro-pastoral ecotones with strong demand for high-quality feed.

Pan Wenbo analyzed and stated that, on the whole, future domestic demand for corn will still show rigid growth; therefore, in the golden belt for corn cultivation in Northeast China, corn production must also be stabilized. In the next step, the state will continuously increase investment in major grain-producing areas and strengthen production capacity building for the three major staple grains.