Farmers busy building granaries to store grain, safeguarding every single grain

The reporter recently went to the rural areas of Pingdu County, Shandong, for an interview, and everywhere could see farmers drying grain on the roads, with vehicles coming and going driving over the roads covered with grain, leaving clouds of dust in their wake.

Local farmers told the reporter that there is now a lack of drying grounds in rural areas, so they have no choice but to dry the newly harvested grain on the roads. After the grain is dried, they either sell it directly or put it in plastic woven bags and store it in simple granaries at home, and the losses caused each year are enormous.

Farmers are the main body of grain production and operation, and also the main body of grain storage. About 500 billion jin of grain in China is stored by farmers at certain stages each year, but due to poor storage conditions, backward technical levels, crude grain storage containers, and lack of knowledge of scientific grain storage, the grain loss rate from farmer household storage is about 8%, and the annual grain storage loss is as high as 40 billion jin, accounting for more than half of the annual grain loss. Improving farmer household grain storage conditions is not only conducive to reducing farmer household grain storage losses, but also conducive to ensuring national food security and food safety.

Grain losses reduced

To reduce post-harvest grain losses, the primary measure is to change the way farmers store grain. Since 2007, China has implemented the scientific grain storage project for farmer households, issuing new-type grain storage containers to farmers. Up to now, 8.17 million sets of new-type grain storage containers have been allocated cumulatively for 26 provinces across the country, reducing the average grain storage loss rate of beneficiary farmer households by 6%, and reducing grain storage losses by 900,000 tons each year for these farmers.

Many farmers in Dawangjiazhai Village, Sanzhuang Town, Donggang District, Rizhao City, Shandong, have installed colored steel plate grain storage bins. Villager Wang Jundong told the reporter that previously his family mainly put grain in discarded woven bags or cement vats, and sometimes the loss of 100 jin of grain reached 10 jin. Since installing the scientific grain storage bin, the grain has basically suffered no loss.

However, China has a huge number of farmer households, with 210 million grain-growing farmer households nationwide, and fewer than 3% of farmer households have implemented the special scientific grain storage project for farmer households. Post-harvest drying, sorting and storage losses are still very large, and reducing farmer household grain storage losses remains a long and arduous task.

Granaries urgently need upgrading

During interviews in various places, the reporter learned that with the development of large-scale land management and the rise of farmers' cooperatives, family farms, and specialized large grain-growing households, their grain storage scale is becoming larger and larger. Every grain harvest season, because there are no good grain storage facilities, they also face considerable grain storage losses. Some family farm owners, in order to reduce post-harvest grain losses, are forced to sell their grain when the price falls as new grain is concentrated on the market, seriously affecting their grain-growing returns.

Ding Shengli from the Eighth Operational Station of the First Management District of the 854 Agricultural Branch of Beidahuang Co., Ltd. planted 4,500 mu of rice this year. Due to good climatic conditions, the yield increased by nearly 27% over last year. This year the government protective purchase price for rice reached 1.55 yuan per jin, but because Heilongjiang's protective purchase price has not yet been activated, Ding Shengli had to sell all the rice that had no granary storage at a price of 1.46 yuan per jin, with a net income of more than 4 million yuan. If he had grain storage facilities to store the grain and sold it when the rice price rose, his grain-growing returns would be even better.

Ding Shengli said he had long wanted to build a grain depot with drying equipment and a storage capacity of 2,500 tons, which would require an investment of at least more than 2 million yuan, but he had delayed starting construction because of a lack of funds. In another two or three years, he must build a grain depot of his own, which can not only maximize grain-growing benefits but also reduce grain storage pressure for the state.

Zhou Yanwu, owner of the Dalan Family Farm in Halata Village, Zhuchengzi Town, Dehui City, Jilin Province, planted 4,000 mu of corn this year. Although it suffered severe drought, because low-lying land increased production, the yield still reached more than 4 million jin, higher than last year's returns. He now stores the corn in scientific grain storage bins and simple grain storage bins he built himself with wooden poles and wire, and plans to sell it before or after the New Year.

Zhou Yanwu said the current scientific grain storage bins are too small and cannot meet the needs of large grain-growing households like them. He hopes to build a grain depot with drying equipment, but it would cost several hundred thousand yuan. He hopes the state can develop large scientific grain storage bins for large grain-growing households like them.

Support policies clear

At present, family farm owners or specialized large grain-growing households like Zhou Yanwu generally face the difficult problem of grain storage. Building a grain storage facility with drying equipment costs at least 300,000 to 400,000 yuan, or as much as several million yuan, and many family farm owners and large grain-growing households cannot afford it. This requires the state to increase support, provide them with the needed funds, technology, and services, and encourage them to raise the level of scientific grain storage technology to reduce post-harvest losses.

The state has now made it clear that it encourages and supports farmers' cooperatives, family farms, specialized large households, and other new-type agricultural operating entities to build grain storage facilities. For large grain-growing households, this is undoubtedly something worth looking forward to.

A relevant official of the National Food Administration clearly stated that in the future it is necessary to expand the scope of implementation of the scientific grain storage project for farmer households, increase training for farmers in advanced grain storage technology, and at the same time, in light of the characteristics of large grain-growing households and family farms, develop and research new large grain storage containers to help large grain-growing households reduce grain storage losses and ensure national food security.