Reducing grain loss equals increasing production, and the potential for saving grain is enormous
In recent years, China has continuously raised its overall grain production capacity through various measures, achieving bumper harvests year after year. However, post-harvest grain loss and waste in China is enormous, with annual grain waste approaching 6% of total annual output, which has become a negative factor that cannot be ignored in safeguarding food security. Ren Zhengxiao, Director of the National Food Administration, believes that backward household grain storage conditions, weak enterprise storage and transport systems, and excessive grain processing are the main causes of current grain waste.
Safeguarding food security has always been the top priority in China's economic and social development. On the eve of World Food Day on October 16, Ren Zhengxiao, Director of the National Food Administration, said in an interview with an Economic Daily reporter that grain loss and waste has become a negative factor that cannot be ignored in China's efforts to safeguard food security. Implementing a strategy that places equal emphasis on increasing grain production and reducing loss and waste is a strategic choice that suits China's national conditions and grain situation and safeguards national food security.
Difficulty in increasing production coexists with excessive waste
There are two ways to safeguard food security: first, increasing production; second, saving. At present, China's grain work is caught in a dilemma between the great difficulty of increasing production and serious loss and waste.
From the perspective of domestic grain supply and demand, in recent years China has adopted various measures to continuously raise its overall grain production capacity, achieving bumper harvests year after year. At present, stocks of the three major staple grains - rice, wheat, and corn - are abundant, fully able to meet domestic market demand and calmly respond to emergencies. However, as the population continues to grow, industrialization and urbanization continue to advance, the consumption structure upgrades, and grain's industrial uses expand, China's grain demand continues to show rigid growth, while stable production and increased output become increasingly difficult, and grain supply and demand will remain in a tight balance for a long time. At the same time, post-harvest grain loss and waste in China is enormous. According to estimates by relevant research institutions and experts, in the links of household storage, transportation, and processing alone, more than 70 billion jin of grain are lost and wasted each year, approaching 6% of total annual output.
Ren Zhengxiao believes that backward household grain storage conditions, weak enterprise storage and transport systems, and excessive grain processing are the main causes of current grain loss and waste.
Specifically, in China's grain storage system, about 500 billion jin of grain is stored in stages in the hands of rural households each year. At the same time, although total grain warehouse capacity exceeds 300 million tonnes, it still cannot meet the demand for safe grain storage, and grain loss in the storage link is serious.
Backward grain logistics methods cause large amounts of grain to be lost during transportation. At present, the proportion of bulk loading, bulk transport, bulk storage, and bulk unloading of grain is low, and warehousing, logistics, loading and unloading, and handling facilities do not match, resulting in serious spillage losses.
Loss of staple grain resources caused by excessive processing of grain and oil reaches more than 15 billion jin.
Reducing waste equals increasing production
To ensure national food security, it is necessary, while doing everything possible to increase grain output, to find ways to strengthen scientific post-harvest grain management and effectively improve the capacity to save grain and reduce loss.
Ren Zhengxiao believes that vigorously reducing post-harvest grain loss is one of the most realistic, feasible, economical, and rational important ways to address the shortage of grain resources, safeguard food security, and achieve sustainable agricultural development.
In recent years, China has continuously strengthened the construction of grain storage and logistics facilities, vigorously repaired and renovated “dangerous and old warehouses”, tapped the potential for saving grain and reducing loss, and sought food security through saving grain and reducing loss. According to the latest data from the National Food Administration, since the implementation of the “Special Project for Scientific Grain Storage by Rural Households” in 2007, 8.17 million sets of new-type grain storage containers have been allocated cumulatively to 26 provinces across the country, reducing the grain storage loss rate of beneficiary households by an average of 6%, and reducing grain storage loss for these households by 900,000 tonnes each year; vigorously carrying out the construction of storage facilities and the renovation of “dangerous and old warehouses”, promoting new grain storage technologies, and reducing the loss rate of dangerous old warehouses and open-air grain storage by an average of nearly 3%; actively guiding processing enterprises to carry out technological upgrading and appropriate processing, increasing the average utilization rate of staple grain resources by 7%; vigorously developing the “bulk loading, bulk transport, bulk storage, and bulk unloading” four-bulk logistics method for raw grain, reducing the average grain transport loss rate by 2%.
From the current situation, China's potential and space for saving grain and reducing loss are enormous. Based on China's total grain output of 1,203.87 billion jin in 2013, if the grain loss rate were reduced by 2 percentage points, 24 billion jin of grain could be saved in one year, close to the amount of grain output increase in 2013.
Multiple measures to promote saving grain and loving grain
At present, saving grain and reducing loss still faces many problems and difficulties, such as the difficulty of promoting scientific grain storage by rural households on a large scale due to shortage of funds, and the prominent contradiction of insufficient grain warehouse capacity. Ren Zhengxiao believes that to ensure that saving grain and reducing loss achieves solid results, it is necessary to fully implement the food collection, storage, and supply security project, strive to form a resource-saving and intensive, green and low-carbon, scientific and healthy grain circulation method and consumption model, and establish as soon as possible a new mechanism for saving grain and reducing loss that is government-led, demand-driven, participated in by all citizens, and collaboratively advanced by society.
Families are the main actors in saving grain and reducing loss in the grain production and consumption links, so it is necessary to carry out in depth the selection of “little tips for saving grain” and the promotion of “grain-loving families”; enterprises are the main actors in saving grain and reducing loss in the grain circulation and processing links, and storage, circulation, and processing enterprises should accelerate transformation and upgrading and continuously raise the yield rate of finished grain and the comprehensive utilization rate of by-products. At the same time, legislation should be strengthened in loving grain, saving grain, and opposing waste, guiding everyone to start from themselves, save every grain of food, and strive to form a social atmosphere of loving grain and saving grain throughout society.