The rise in farmland transfer fees for grain fields must be moderate; the rate of increase should not be too fast

According to recent media reports, "competitive bidding" for contracted land in Yinji Town, Jinhu County, Huai'an, Jiangsu, has pushed up the value of grain fields once again. The annual contract fee has risen from 700-750 yuan/mu in the past to 950-1070 yuan/mu now. Yinji Town currently has 43,000 mu of grain fields, of which 38,000 mu has already been transferred, accounting for 88.3% of the grain field area. Those who come to the town to contract land for planting include not only capable local large-scale farmers, but also investors and operators from Tianchang, Baoying and other places in Anhui.

The grain field transfer fees in Yinji Town, Jinhu, rose by 35.7%-42.7% over several years. On the one hand, this shows that agricultural investment is becoming a hot field; on the other hand, it has also promoted a relatively rapid increase in the income of farmers who contract out cultivated land.

For our country, which has a large population and little land, and where food security has always been the top priority of national security, the transfer fee for grain fields is not better the higher it is; it should be timely and moderate.

Among various crops, the returns from planting grain crops are relatively low. Compared with planting vegetables, cash crops and so on, it can only maintain capital with meager profit. To improve the economic benefits of grain planting, it is necessary to develop appropriately scaled operations.

Our country currently has 260 million farming households, with an average of 7.5 mu of cultivated land per household. Based on the current average annual income of 1,000 yuan per mu from grain planting, the average annual income per household is only 7,500 yuan. With such small-scale operations, not to mention farmers achieving moderate prosperity, even basic living expenses are difficult to sustain.

To expand the scale of grain production, it is necessary to transfer cultivated land. The level of transfer fees not only affects the level of economic benefits for those who transfer land, but also affects the country's food security.

When developing production through transferred cultivated land, the first consideration for those who transfer land is the issue of economic benefits. If the expected benefits can be obtained through scaled operations, then production can continue; otherwise, they will have no choice but to turn elsewhere.

In recent years, farmers in many parts of our country have enthusiastically transferred cultivated land to engage in grain production. However, many of those who transfer land are only a flash in the pan.

Liang Ziran, a farmer from Yongchuan District, Chongqing, who was engaged in rice processing, transferred 10,600 mu of rice paddies from 2,632 households in 8 villages in Zhutuo Town, Yongchuan District, in early 2009 to plant rice, becoming Chongqing's largest "grain king." By 2012, Liang Ziran had accumulated losses of more than 2 million yuan from farming and had to withdraw from all transferred land, going bankrupt from grain planting. Analyzing the reasons, Liang Ziran's bankruptcy was directly related to the rise in transfer fees and labor wages. At the beginning of renting land in 2009, the labor contract price signed between Liang Ziran and the labor service cooperative was 810 yuan/mu, but due to the shortage of rural labor and demand exceeding supply, the labor remuneration Liang Ziran actually paid to the cooperative exceeded 900 yuan. In addition, Liang Ziran also had to pay for the purchase of production machinery, production materials, hiring experts and other expenses. So many expenses squeezed the profit margin of grain production extremely narrow, or even completely occupied it, resulting in negative figures.

Comrades who often go to rural areas can easily see a peculiar phenomenon: in areas with convenient transportation or developed economies, fewer and fewer grain fields are planted with grain crops. Instead, they are replaced by cash crops, flowers and seedlings, or other non-agricultural and non-grain industries.

The fundamental reason for the above phenomenon is, importantly, the rapid rise in cultivated land transfer fees year after year. When the economic benefits for those who transfer cultivated land to plant grain show negative growth, they have no choice but to turn to non-grain industries. If this continues, the stable and sustained growth of our country's grain production will become empty talk. Our country has now become the world's number one soybean importer and one of the largest importers of wheat and rice. Grain production must not be neglected at any time, and the alarm bell should always ring.

To mobilize the enthusiasm of all sectors of society to invest in agriculture and develop grain production, efforts must be made in many aspects.

Farmers should be guided to transfer cultivated land reasonably. The trend of rapid industrialization and urbanization is irreversible. Under the pattern of rural population going out to work or do business and the aging of those engaged in agricultural production, carrying out scaled operations is not only necessary to improve rural productivity, but also necessary to fully absorb social capital, promote the development of grain production and safeguard national food security. Under the principle of "lawful, voluntary and compensated," farmers should be guided to reasonably charge cultivated land transfer fees. It is necessary to guarantee the immediate interests of those who contract out cultivated land, and also allow those who transfer land to obtain necessary returns, achieving win-win cooperation between both sides.

It is necessary to implement grain planting subsidy policies for large grain growers, farmers' professional cooperatives and new agricultural operating entities. Affected by natural conditions and various factors, it is impossible to greatly increase grain yield per unit area in the short term. To both develop scaled grain production and make scaled grain operators profitable, it is necessary, while improving the grain collection and storage system, to give direct subsidies to those who produce grain on a large scale.

Producing grain under market economy conditions requires a series of supporting measures, such as agricultural production machinery, storage facilities and so on. For these facilities, which require considerable investment, ordinary grain producers find it very difficult to solve them on their own. Therefore, the state needs to adopt a policy of substituting awards for subsidies and provide necessary support.