Grain depot corruption is not just about embezzlement and lawbreaking; the hidden story behind it is rarely known

Recently, the Qingyunbao Central Grain Depot in Kaiyuan City, Liaoning Province, and the Qianguo Baiyilaga Collection and Storage Depot in Songyuan City, Jilin Province, were exposed by CCTV for issues including passing off old grain as new grain and maliciously fraudulently claiming price-difference subsidies. Once the news broke, the national grain depots once again became the focus of public attention.

“Food is the first necessity of the people.” Grain reserves are a material reserve system established to guarantee the grain consumption needs of the non-agricultural population, regulate the balance of grain supply and demand, stabilize grain market prices, and respond to major natural disasters or other emergencies. The China Grain Reserves Corporation, which is specifically responsible for operations and management, is even regarded as the “granary under heaven.”

In recent years, as grain corruption cases have occurred from time to time, and individual local grain depots have bred “big rats,” this has long been an open secret in society. The “rat infestation” has become a disaster, already causing the grain reserve system to lose its proper character, and netizens cannot help but ask: what exactly has happened to our “grain conscience”?

A “late” investigation result

The practice of “replacing new with old” naturally drew unanimous condemnation from public opinion.

Recalling the 2013 fire at the Lindian Directly Subordinate Depot of Sinograin in Heilongjiang, the netizen “Rainy Gray Harbor” joked: I'm just sitting here waiting for all kinds of grain depot fires; fire says it feels very helpless.

Criticism and accusations like these have not been rare on the internet in recent days, and the media's continuous follow-up reporting has further escalated the “replacing new with old” incident.

Under pressure, Sinograin established an investigation team on April 17 and sent personnel to the enterprises involved in the two provinces for verification and handling. After the incident was exposed, two verification and supervision work groups led by Zhao Wenxian, director of the Supervision and Inspection Department of the National Food and Strategic Reserves Administration, also rushed to Liaoning and Jilin provinces respectively to guide and supervise the verification work.

Not only that, a multi-department joint investigation team composed of the grain bureaus at the provincial, municipal, and county levels in Jilin Province sealed 16,000 tons of rice at the Baiyilaga Grain Depot on the afternoon of the 17th, and then rushed to grain depots in Songyuan, Baicheng, and other places to launch an investigation. The investigation team said the final result might be announced before the 21st. Han Fuchun, director of the Jilin Provincial Grain Bureau, said that a general survey of grain depots in Jilin Province would be conducted, and any found to be unqualified would immediately be removed from the national grain depot system, with relevant responsible persons held accountable.

However, as of April 23, a China Youth Daily reporter had not seen the investigation results announced, so they separately called Sinograin, the National Food and Strategic Reserves Administration, the Jilin Provincial Grain Bureau, and the Liaoning Provincial Agricultural Commission to learn the latest progress of the investigation.

Faced with the problem, a staff member of Sinograin's publicity department said: “Sinograin is now working with the relevant departments' joint investigation team to conduct the investigation intensively, and once the results are out, they will be reported to society as soon as possible.”

The news office of the National Food and Strategic Reserves Administration said that for specific progress, one could consult the local investigation team: this matter depends on the local investigation team's situation, and they will mainly publish it online; the grain administration mainly provided supervision in the past, and its follow-up information is certainly not as good as the local side's.

A staff member of the office of the Jilin Provincial Grain Bureau said that all progress would only be disclosed to China Central Television, and regarding the reporter's inquiries, said there was no comment. When asked why the promise to announce the investigation results before the 21st had not been fulfilled, the staff member said they were not clear.

A staff member of the office of the Liaoning Provincial Agricultural Commission told the reporter that the provincial government and the National Food and Strategic Reserves Administration were investigating and resolving the incident in Kaiyuan City, and that so far it was not yet appropriate to announce it publicly. He said it was not convenient to disclose the contact information of the investigation team, and that once the handling result came out, it would be announced to the public as soon as possible, but the specific time could not yet be determined.

On the 23rd, CCTV publicly announced that after continuous investigation and evidence collection, the Jilin investigation team had ascertained that the mysterious buyer who was exposed was a relative of a leader of the Baiyilaga Grain Depot. But why does the “granary under heaven” pass off old grain as new? What exactly is the state of the cleanup of grain depot corruption? Everything remains unknown.

The “grain depot corruption” you don't know about

What makes the “big rats” scramble for it is nothing more than the huge benefits that are within easy reach. In fact, “replacing new with old” is only one kind of “grain depot trickery.”

“Passing off inferior goods as good, passing off fake as real to fraudulently obtain state subsidies, taking kickbacks from various projects, falsifying accounts - there are very many forms of corruption.” According to Zheng Fengtian, vice dean of the School of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development at Renmin University of China, under China's existing grain reserve system, the emergence of corruption is not only frequent, but the difficulty level of corrupt operations is low.

The behavior exposed by CCTV this time, in which grain depots and grain merchants in Liaoning, Jilin, and other places colluded to replace new grain with old grain to earn the price difference, is one of the common methods among many means of grain corruption.

A similar method is called “buy low, transfer high” in the grain industry, referring to profiting within grain depots through the state's annual increase in collection and storage prices.

As prices rise, “in recent years, China's annual grain collection and storage price has risen by 10%-15% compared with the previous year.” Zheng Fengtian said, “Moreover, grain can receive state subsidies while in storage. Following this pattern, grain depots sell at a high price the grain purchased at a low price that year, and in this process they not only earn the price difference, but the new grain received also gets state subsidies.”

The actual situation is far more complex than in theory, so much so that many “variants” have emerged. Zhou Guodong of the Grain Bureau of Songshan District, Chifeng City, Inner Mongolia, wrote that “buy low, transfer high” is a common method of grain corruption. This method is mainly used for national and local special reserve grain, and there are often several specific ways of operating it; some unlawful operators often exploit loopholes in policy.