Who is growing grain under the background of land transfer? New models emerge among grain-growing entities

According to land transfer data from the Henan Provincial Department of Agriculture, as well as special research data from the Henan Provincial People's Congress, the area of non-grain land in Henan has reached about 15%, and the impact this will have on grain production is worth watching

Henan, a major grain-producing province, has strong momentum in land transfer. Statistics from the provincial Department of Agriculture show that the total area of land transfer in Henan is currently 33.93 million mu, accounting for 34.8% of land under household contracted management.

From the perspective of the transfer structure, a monitoring result from 2011 to 2013 shows that the annual growth rate of the area transferred by farming households fell from 25% to 16%, while the growth rate of new entities including enterprises, cooperatives and large grain-growing households remained above 40%.

After household farmland is scaled up, what changes have taken place in Henan's grain-growing situation?

New models emerge among grain-growing entities

From April to July 2014, the Henan Provincial People's Congress organized special research on the issue of land transfer. This questionnaire survey conducted among 600 farming households in 40 counties (cities and districts) of 18 provincial-level cities shows:

The area of land transfer in Henan is currently increasing rapidly. Among the 600 farming households, 379 had transferred contracted land, accounting for 63.2% of the surveyed farming households. During the four years from 2010 to 2014, the proportion of land transfer area increased by nearly 60%;

In terms of the term of land transfer, most were medium- and long-term. Among them, 128 households were under 5 years, 114 households were 5 to 10 years, and 137 households were more than 10 years, accounting for 33.8%, 30.1% and 36.1% respectively;

In terms of the recipients of land transfer, a total of 268 households, or 70.7%, transferred land to large land management households, while less than 30% transferred it to ordinary farming households;

In terms of land transfer fees, nearly 70% of farming households that transferred land received land transfer payments of more than 500 yuan/mu per year.

Against this background, the matter of growing grain is undergoing a “chemical change.”

In August 2014, 7 farmers' cooperatives in Weihui City connected with 1 provincial-level leading agricultural enterprise to form a farmers' professional cooperative union. At present, the union has a total of more than 30,000 mu of land, of which 6,632 mu has been transferred, 17,190 mu is under trusteeship, and the rest is contract farming. It is reported that this flour enterprise processes 300,000 tons of wheat annually, and will buy back all the grain of the union by referring to the market grain price and choosing the higher rather than the lower.

Cheng Jihua, chairman of the union, told reporters, “In today's union, there are those doing planting, agricultural machinery services, and soil testing and formulated fertilization. In the past, when each fought alone, there were many ‘shortcomings.’ After joining together, resources are shared and advantages are complementary, and small sampans have become large sailboats.”

“The company mainly processes strong-gluten bread flour. Although the amount of strong-gluten wheat grown separately by farming households is large, the standard cannot meet the requirements. With this kind of connection, a safe, stable and standardized grain source is guaranteed.” said Yuan Hui, the person in charge of the above-mentioned enterprise.

Zhang Jingshui, deputy director of the Xinxiang City Agriculture Bureau, said that land transfer and large-scale operation are good things and also a trend, but constrained by various conditions, purely grain-oriented land transfer has high costs and low output. “After the establishment of the union, the participation of leading enterprises solved the problems of funds and product sales channels for the cooperatives. More importantly, the connection between the field and the factory improved the level of agricultural industrialization. It can be said that under the drive of land transfer, various resource factors have been integrated and reorganized, producing a ‘chemical reaction.’”

A similar “chemical reaction” is also reflected in the land transfer trust model explored in some places.

In June 2014, Yifeng Farmers' Cooperative in Huaibin County signed a contract with a trust company in Zhengzhou, completing the first land transfer trust project in Xinyang City. Li Zhaofeng, chairman of the cooperative, introduced that over the past few years the cooperative had successively transferred and operated more than 1,300 mu of land. As various inputs gradually increased, the funding bottleneck became increasingly prominent, and it could no longer come up with money to continue expanding the scale.

“According to the new model, the trust company paid the rent, transferred 1,000 mu of land from the village, and then handed it to the cooperative for planting, with both sides settling the returns in proportion. In this way, on the one hand, the constraint of invested funds is reduced, and on the other hand, the cooperative can also achieve rolling development.” Li Zhaofeng said.

Zhang Yaling, person in charge of Henan Dayu Damei Modern Agriculture Co., Ltd., which also transferred 3,500 mu of land under the trust model, said that because of the participation of the trust company, the subcontracting farmers, the operating entity and the trust company formed a solid “triangular relationship.” It not only effectively reduced the risk that farmers cannot receive land rent due to poor management, but also resolved the funding difficulties of new operating entities, and may have a catalytic effect on future land transfer.