What can farmers do when drying grain is a problem? Grain dryers come to the rescue

On November 18, villager Liu Jie of Huangdun Village, Huangdun Town, Huaining County, Anhui Province, was busy transporting 3,700 kg of freshly harvested rice that was still damp to the farm of Xu Fuyun, the village's major grain grower.

Why did Liu Jie take the grain he grew to Xu Fuyun's farm? "The farm has a large dryer that can dry the rice, so even if it rains, the rice will not go moldy." The quick-speaking Liu Jie got straight to the point.

So how did Xu Fuyun come up with the idea of buying a grain dryer? This matter goes back to before 2012. Through land transfer, Xu Fuyun became a well-known major grain grower in Huangdun Town, planting more than 2,000 mu of rice and wheat each year. "After the early rice is harvested, the grain has a relatively high moisture content, and with the excessive rain, the rice easily sprouts and rots." Speaking of how the rice used to be dried, Xu Fuyun was helpless. Even in fine weather, he still had to harvest and dry grain at the same time, with no time to handle both; moreover, drying the rice took several days. Even more frustrating was that the village had no large drying yard for drying grain. "In 2010, my rice and wheat went moldy because there was nowhere to dry them, causing direct economic losses of more than 400,000 yuan."

In 2012, Xu Fuyun happened to see information about grain dryers and resolutely invested 2.4 million yuan to buy two large dryers. Sure enough, these two dryers came in handy during the continuous rainy weather in 2013; one large dryer could dry an average of 50 tons of grain per day. Xu Fuyun carefully calculated the accounts on his fingers: in the past, drying rice was not only limited by the site, but also required hiring people to help with drying. Generally, it took 3 days to dry, and the labor cost was 0.1 yuan/kg, so 50 tons of rice cost 5,000 yuan; now the machine drying cost is 0.06 yuan/kg, so the drying fee for 50 tons of rice is 3,000 yuan, reducing the cost by 2,000 yuan compared with before. "Also, when rice was dried in the yard before, chickens and ducks pecking at it caused a lot of waste. Now that machine drying is used instead, there is no need to worry about this anymore."

Seeing that the rice Liu Jie brought was quickly dried, Hu Zuzhi, a villager from Jiangling Village, Huangdun Town, also hauled all of the more than 30 tons of rice he had harvested to Xu Fuyun's farm. Hu Zuzhi said: "The dryer can completely dry the rice, faster and better than natural sun-drying. More importantly, I can now free up more time to engage in other activities; otherwise, every extra day of delay would cause losses of who knows how much money."

Speaking about the benefits of grain dryers, Qian Shiping, director of the Huaining County Agriculture Committee, said: "The use of this equipment can save labor and reduce costs on the one hand, and on the other hand it can effectively strengthen farmers' ability to withstand natural disasters and ensure food security. At present, our county mainly guides major grain growers like Xu Fuyun to solve the problem of rice drying by purchasing dryers, hoping that they will lead farming households to use them voluntarily."

Zheng Jiuhan, head of the county's Agricultural Machinery Bureau, introduced that in order to increase farmers' enthusiasm for growing grain and solve the grain-drying difficulties of farmers, especially major grain growers, on the basis of national agricultural machinery policy subsidies, Huaining County also gives strong support to major grain growers in machine selection, technical services, fund-raising and other aspects. "For the two dryers I bought last year, the government subsidized 70,000 yuan." Xu Fuyun said proudly, "Some major grain growers I know can also buy dryers through loans from the financing platform established by the government." It is reported that Huaining County currently has more than 10 family farms with grain drying equipment and 70 large and small grain dryers.