How can the responsibility for saving grain be firmly placed on enterprises' shoulders?

Opening remarks: China's grain production has had consecutive bumper harvests, and at present grain production and demand remain basically balanced. But a large population with limited land is China's basic national condition, and constraints on natural resources such as fresh water and the ecological environment, as well as the effects of climate change, are becoming increasingly obvious, making it ever harder to keep grain output stable and increase it.

⟦NL> To safeguard food security, it is necessary both to increase sources and, even more, to reduce waste. Compared with increasing production, reducing losses saves arable land and water resources, requires relatively smaller input, and has obvious economic and social benefits. In order to strengthen the whole population's awareness of cherishing grain and saving grain, deepen society's understanding of the food security situation, and vigorously promote the establishment of a new mechanism for saving grain and reducing losses that is government-led, demand-driven, participated in by all, and advanced through social coordination, starting today this newspaper launches the "Saving Grain: We Are Taking Action" column. Please stay tuned.

According to information released by the National Grain Administration, the losses and waste caused each year in China just in the links of grain storage, transportation and processing amount to as much as 70 billion jin. On the one hand, grain waste is serious; on the other hand, with population growth, advancing urbanization and upgrading of the consumption structure, China's grain supply and demand will remain in a state of tight balance for a long time. Safeguarding food security requires reducing waste, and enterprises, as the main actors in saving grain and reducing losses, bear important responsibility in reducing grain waste.

Reduce the number of polishing passes

In golden October, rice in Panjin City, Liaoning Province, has basically finished being harvested, and a faint fragrance of rice still lingers in the fields. The reporter walked into the processing workshop of Liaoning Panjin Dingxiang Rice Co., Ltd., where modern rice processing equipment roared. Li Jinyou, secretary of the company's Party committee, told the reporter that they use internationally advanced rice processing equipment and carry out fully enclosed, purely physical processing throughout the entire process, effectively reducing processing losses.

At present, losses and waste in China's grain processing link are serious. Each year, grain ration losses caused by excessive processing reach more than 15 billion jin, of which rice losses are 7 billion jin. Excessive polishing is the main cause of rice waste. According to surveys, in order to improve processing precision, the number of polishing passes in China's rice processing has generally increased to more than 2; each additional polishing pass reduces the rice yield rate by 1%.

In order to reduce losses in the processing link, Dingxiang Rice Co., Ltd. strictly implements national standards and, on the premise of ensuring taste, adopts a production process of multi-stage light milling and one polishing pass. Through 5 continuously operating rice milling machines, the company reduces milling pressure and lengthens the milling line, and on the premise of ensuring that the rice is white, it retains the nutritional components of rice to the greatest extent and reduces breakage, achieving a rice yield rate of 68%. Because it reduces polishing by 1 to 2 passes compared with other rice processing enterprises, losses are correspondingly reduced by 2% to 5%. Moreover, through technical transformation for energy saving and loss reduction, Dingxiang Company's energy consumption per ton of rice has fallen to 44 kWh, more than 20% lower than the industry average energy consumption level.

Strictly implement standards

At present, many consumers have a misunderstanding, believing that the whiter the flour the better, the more refined the rice the better, and the clearer the cooking oil the better. In order to cater to consumer demand, enterprises constantly pursue fine processing of grain, leading to serious nutrient loss and grain waste. Tian Yujun, secretary-general of the China National Association of Grain Sector, believes that excessive processing has to a certain extent expanded grain demand and planted hidden dangers for food security. Great importance must be attached to the problem of excessive processing of grain and oil, consumers' consumption concept of excessively pursuing "refinement, whiteness and beauty" must be changed, and enterprises must be guided to strictly implement national standards.

It is understood that the current product standards for wheat flour, rice, soybean oil and others were formulated under the principle of taking into account nutrition, palatability and conservation. If grain and oil processing enterprises strictly implement national standards, excessive processing can be avoided. The reality is that, in order to cater to market demand, grain processing enterprises often produce products according to excessively high standards.

Wang Lirong, chief engineer of the Standards and Quality Center of the National Grain Administration, believes that to solve the problems encountered in promoting national standards, first it is necessary to guide consumers to consume grain and oil products scientifically and form scientific and healthy consumption habits. Second, it is necessary to do a good job in implementing standards, guide grain and oil processing enterprises to process moderately according to national standards and reasonably control processing precision; and encourage and guide processing enterprises to formulate and implement technical specifications and enterprise standards for grain and oil product production that conform to full nutrition, good taste, high quality and low loss. At present, the National Grain Administration has formulated 515 grain and oil standards, basically covering links such as grain and oil production, storage, processing and consumption. From the perspective of saving grain, reducing losses and safeguarding national food security, the National Grain Administration will vigorously advance the formulation and revision of key standards such as national standards for grain and oil-related products, standards for product energy consumption quotas, and grain and oil machinery standards, continuously improve the grain and oil standards system, and effectively enhance the leading and guiding role of standards.

Implement scientific grain storage

During interviews, the reporter learned that some excellent grain processing enterprises not only advocate energy saving and loss reduction in the processing link, but also carry the concept of saving grain and reducing losses through every link such as grain production and storage.

Around the Hubei Yangxin National Grain Reserve Depot are large and medium-sized state-owned farms such as Junken and Jingtoushan that mainly produce high-quality rice, with high-quality and sufficient grain sources.

"Scientific grain storage is an important means of ensuring grain storage safety and saving grain and reducing losses, and it is also an important measure for lowering storage costs and improving economic benefits." A relevant person in charge of the Yangxin reserve depot introduced that they persist in scientific grain storage and, according to climatic and environmental factors and in combination with their own storage conditions, implement comprehensive temperature-controlled grain storage. Moreover, the reserve depot constantly innovates storage models, organically combining new technologies such as mechanical ventilation and recirculation fumigation with auxiliary measures such as double-film sealing and rice husk covering, forming a set of optimized and integrated multi-technology grain storage models.

Now, many grain processing enterprises have built modern flat warehouses, vertical silos and shallow round silos, greatly improving storage capacity. Dingxiang Company's storage capacity has reached more than 60,000 tons. In the storage link, Dingxiang Rice Co., Ltd. adopts low-temperature and environmentally friendly storage methods, reducing grain losses by about 240 tons each year.

In order to effectively improve the capacity to save grain and reduce losses, in 2013 China began implementing the "Grain Security Project" to strengthen infrastructure construction such as grain storage and logistics. This year and next, China will build 100 billion jin of warehouse capacity in the major grain-producing areas of the Northeast and the South, which will greatly reduce losses and waste in the storage link in major grain-producing areas.

In order to promote the establishment of a new mechanism for saving grain and reducing losses, the National Grain Administration has increased research and development efforts on key technologies for saving grain and reducing losses, and promoted the "four-scatter" logistics mode for raw grain: "bulk loading, bulk transport, bulk storage and bulk unloading." By the end of 2014, 8.17 million sets of new-type grain storage equipment will have been allocated cumulatively to 26 provinces across the country, which can reduce the storage loss rate of grain storage enterprises by an average of about 1.7% each year.