New-season rapeseed planting area shrinks, oilseed meal price trend hard to judge

A Where have the green and lush rapeseed fields gone

In the early winter season of past years, traveling across the land of Jingchu, green and lush rapeseed fields stretched as far as the eye could see, and the manually transplanted rapeseed stood as neatly as soldiers lined up in formation, a most pleasing sight.

But now, even after driving over a thousand kilometers, it is still hard to find large areas of contiguous rapeseed fields, while wheat fields, citrus orchards, cotton fields and abandoned rice paddies come into view from time to time.

Where have the green and lush rapeseed fields gone?

“This year the rapeseed planting area in Jingzhou City is not promising; compared with the same period last year, the reduction is about 20%, that is, the 2015 rapeseed planting area was about 3.08 million mu, a decrease of 770,000 mu.” Sun Wei, general manager of the trade branch of Chinatex Agriculture Hubei Co., Ltd., told the Futures Daily reporter that Jingzhou City in Hubei Province is one of China's main rapeseed growing areas, and in recent years, constrained by multiple factors, the rapeseed planting area has declined relatively quickly, and this year is especially obvious.

It is understood that for many years the rapeseed planting area in Jingzhou City has been stable at about 3.8 million mu, with total output at about 550,000 tons. The local planting methods are mainly machine-plowed broadcast sowing in paddy fields and machine-plowed machine sowing in dry land, with a small transplanted area; paddy and dry land each account for 50%, paddy fields use rapeseed-rice rotation, dry land uses rapeseed-cotton and miscellaneous crop rotation, the per-unit yield in paddy fields is 140 kg, and the per-unit yield in dry land is about 160 kg.

The reason why the rapeseed planting area in Hubei, Hunan Province and surrounding areas has dropped sharply this year is mainly caused by the following factors. First, policy adjustments affected farmers' planting plans. This year's Central Document No. 1 proposed gradually establishing a target price system for agricultural products, continuing to adhere to the principle of market pricing, and exploring reform to decouple the price mechanism of grain and other agricultural products from government subsidies. This year, agricultural products such as cotton and soybeans were decoupled from the price-support policy, and target market pricing was implemented; the government conducted a cotton subsidy pilot only in the Xinjiang region, causing a large reduction in the cotton planting area in the interior. Next year the government may cancel the rapeseed price-support purchasing policy. In recent years farmers have become accustomed to government price-support purchasing; with a set price, farmers have a basis in their hearts and know what they should plant and what they should not plant. But as of the start of rapeseed sowing this year, there was still no final conclusion on how next year's rapeseed purchasing policy would be adjusted, and there are uncertain factors on the policy side, which frustrated farmers' enthusiasm for planting rapeseed, and many farmers switched rapeseed fields to wheat fields.

Second, the economic benefits of planting rapeseed are relatively poor, and the income from planting rapeseed is less than that from planting wheat and other crops. Sun Wei told the reporter that the per-unit yield of one mu of wheat is more than 800 jin, and calculated at this year's average market price of 1.03 yuan/jin, the income per mu is 824 yuan. The per-unit yield of one mu of rapeseed is about 300 jin, and this year's average market price of rapeseed is 2.45 yuan/jin, so the income per mu is 735 yuan. Comparing the two, planting wheat brings 89 yuan/mu more income than planting rapeseed. In addition, planting one mu of rapeseed requires an input of 481 yuan, while the average expenditure for one mu of wheat is 450 yuan. Overall, planting wheat brings 120 yuan/mu more income than planting rapeseed.

Third, rural labor is in short supply, while rapeseed planting requires more manual labor, and field management during the growth period is also relatively troublesome. In addition, the planting and harvesting of rapeseed all rely on manpower and are difficult to mechanize, so farmers are more willing to plant crops such as wheat, whose sowing and harvesting can almost entirely be mechanized.

In multiple counties and cities in Hubei and Hunan Province, the reporter saw that, apart from a few counties and cities that still plant rapeseed on a large scale in order to develop the tourism industry, most areas saw a decline in rapeseed planting area this year. Several farmers interviewed said that during this year's rapeseed purchasing period, because buyers had very strict requirements for rapeseed quality, the price at which farmers actually sold rapeseed did not increase compared with previous years. Therefore, after this year's rapeseed entered the suitable sowing period, many farmers chose to sow wheat and planted rapeseed only on marginal plots.

In addition, according to the reporter's understanding, this year the planting area in other rapeseed-producing areas such as Anhui also showed a downward trend, with the rapeseed planting area in many areas decreasing by about 15%, and the reduction in some areas exceeding 20%.

B Switching from transplanting to broadcast sowing will lead to reduced rapeseed yield

In the main rapeseed-producing areas of Hubei, Hunan and other provinces, many rapeseed plants are growing densely; rapeseed sown early has already grown 5—6 leaves, and farmers are busy thinning seedlings in the fields, while rapeseed sown late has just grown two small leaves, but these small rapeseed plants are just as dense.

According to the reporter's understanding, the actual rapeseed planting area in Jingmen City, Hubei Province this year is estimated at 1.65 million—1.7 million mu, lower than the previous year's 1.8 million mu. Although the reduction in sown area is not large, 50%—60% of the rapeseed was broadcast sown, whereas in previous years 90% of the rapeseed was transplanted.

The change in rapeseed planting method from transplanting to broadcast sowing appears to have no substantive difference, but according to experienced farmers and agricultural experts, this will cause the per-unit rapeseed yield to drop by about 10%.

Compared with transplanted rapeseed, broadcast-sown rapeseed has disordered plant spacing and row spacing; even if farmers ultimately thin the seedlings, in the later growth stage it will still restrict the growth of the rapeseed root system, branches and leaves, and siliques. It can thus be seen that although broadcast-sown rapeseed simplifies the sowing method and saves manpower compared with transplanted rapeseed, it ultimately damages the yield.

In conversations with some farmers, the reporter learned that the higher per-unit yield of transplanted rapeseed is 400 jin/mu, the medium-to-low per-unit yield is 350 jin/mu, while the per-unit yield of broadcast-sown rapeseed is only about 300 jin/mu.

Chang Wei, business manager of Hubei Xinyu Agriculture Development Co., Ltd., told the reporter that because rapeseed growth has high water and fertilizer requirements and rapeseed planting requires large manual input, many households with little labor no longer plant it, and changes in production methods have become an even more common phenomenon. At present, the main force engaged in agricultural production in rapeseed-producing areas is the elderly and women; the land in the producing areas is mainly paddy fields, and some areas have hilly terrain. To save manpower, farmers have no choice but to change the rapeseed production method from transplanting to broadcast sowing, and this production method will remain mainstream in the next few years, and the per-unit rapeseed yield is expected to decline steadily.