New technology enters traditional Chinese granaries, accelerating the upgrade of grain production

There are no layers upon layers of bulging sacks, as one might imagine, only neatly stacked wheat kernels about two stories high. This is the scene a China News Service reporter witnessed in the granary of the grain and oil reserve depot directly under the Zhejiang Provincial Grain Bureau. With the help of new technology, this warehouse with only just over 30 employees manages large quantities of grain “with ease”.

Converting packaged warehouses to bulk storage was a key step in upgrading traditional granary facilities. Huang Zhijun, director of the Zhejiang Provincial Grain and Oil Reserve Warehouse Management Center, said that in the past grain was stored in sacks, and the need to buy sacks naturally added to expenses; even more distressing was that the gaps between the sacks were wasted for nothing, invisibly reducing the warehouse's grain storage capacity. In addition, loading and unloading grain required manual carrying, which was time-consuming and labor-intensive.

Under these circumstances, this directly affiliated grain and oil reserve depot began converting packaged warehouses to bulk storage. At present, 9 warehouses have completed this conversion.

This change looks ordinary, but its effects are unusual. Jin Jiande, deputy director of the grain and oil reserve depot, said that after the conversion, warehouse capacity increased from the original 1,800 tonnes to 3,650 tonnes; grain loading and unloading also became more convenient and faster, “previously unloading one boat of grain required more than 30 stevedores, now unloading four or five boats requires only 6-7 people”, giving better assurance to the efficiency of grain transfer and turnover.

With bulk storage conversion as the foundation, more advanced technologies have found their use. For example, moving air ducts from underground to the walls lets air that originally flowed vertically instead blow horizontally slowly across the grain, allowing the grain to dissipate heat better and lose less moisture. After the grain pile is sealed, high-purity nitrogen is injected to replace insecticides, causing pests to die from lack of oxygen; this neither leaves pesticide residue on the grain nor pollutes the environment.

New technology trends such as intelligent control, informatization and the Internet of Things have also blown into traditional granaries.

For example, in controlling temperature and humidity, the reserve depot previously detected grain temperature “like taking someone's body temperature”: workers needed to insert thermometers one by one into the grain pile, then after a few minutes pull them out one by one to read and record the data, and recording all the warehouses required more than ten people working for a full day. Now, with a wireless grain condition detection system based on “cloud technology”, completing the same workload takes only one hour.

In China, grain and oil reserve depots that use new technology to upgrade old storage facilities are increasing day by day. According to the introduction, warehouses like the grain and oil reserve depot directly under the Zhejiang Grain Bureau account for about half of those in Zhejiang Province.

According to the latest data from the State Grain Administration, at present 78% of all warehouses in China are equipped with mechanical ventilation systems and 57% are equipped with computer-based grain condition measurement and control systems, and the degree of mechanization in warehousing and logistics operations has increased markedly; the grain storage capacity applying the “four-in-one” (grain condition detection, mechanical ventilation, circulating fumigation, grain cooling) new grain storage technology has reached 160 million tonnes.

Technical upgrading has become a common trend in China's granaries, stemming from the official emphasis on ensuring food security.

China's grain output has grown for ten consecutive years, and a bumper summer grain harvest in 2014 is already a foregone conclusion. But with many people and little arable land, the reality that the relationship between grain supply and demand remains in a fragile “tight balance” has not changed because of this. Reducing losses in the grain reserve stage has become an inevitable requirement for letting Chinese people “hold their rice bowls firmly in their own hands”.

At the same time, as output has increased year after year, how to effectively utilize and preserve grain well has also become a problem urgently needing solution.

Officials have stressed on multiple occasions that advanced grain storage technology should be applied and the upgrading of grain storage facilities should be promoted.

Premier Li Keqiang of the State Council pointed out when chairing an executive meeting of the State Council in June this year that China's warehouse capacity is generally tight and seriously insufficient in some areas, and that warehouse facility construction must be strengthened to ensure every grain of food is returned to the granary.

Zhai Jianglin, director of the Circulation and Science and Technology Development Department of the State Grain Administration, revealed that the grain system is currently studying and planning the construction of 100 billion jin of new warehouse capacity for this year and next, and the new warehouse capacity will actively adopt new technologies such as green grain storage, intelligent control, informatization and energy conservation and emissions reduction, to raise China's capacity and level of food security reserves.