How can grain storage needs be met? Multi-channel innovation ensures every grain goes into the warehouse

The Zhengzhou Directly Affiliated Depot of the China Grain Reserves Corporation has adopted technological means such as intelligent ventilation, and uses grain logistics technology featuring bulk loading, bulk unloading, bulk storage and bulk transport, effectively reducing grain losses in the transport and storage stages. The photo shows workers sorting wheat being put into the warehouse. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Pan Xu

In recent years grain harvests have continued to be abundant, and warehouses in major grain-producing areas have been filled to capacity. The existing warehouse capacity cannot meet the demand for grain purchase and storage. How to ease the pressure on warehouse capacity and ensure that every grain of grain goes into the warehouse has become an urgent problem that must be solved in the summer grain purchase.

Promoting sales and freeing up warehouses to advance deep processing of grain

Insufficient warehouse capacity has long plagued grain purchase and storage. An effective way to ease the pressure on warehouse capacity is to vigorously promote sales and free up warehouses, adopting measures such as targeted sales to digest temporary storage grain and old grain, thereby freeing up warehouse capacity for new grain.

The Anhui Provincial Grain Wholesale Market is a major trading center designated by the state for temporary storage grain. The reporter learned that since late May, entrusted by the relevant state departments, the market has seen an increasing trend in various types of temporary storage; the grain volume put on the market has increased from 1 million tons per week initially to 10 million tons now, with the targets mainly distributed in major grain-producing areas such as Heilongjiang, Jilin, Hubei and Hunan. This shows that the state has clearly accelerated the pace of freeing up warehouses by expanding grain sales.

To ease the problem of insufficient warehouse capacity in major grain-producing areas, it is also necessary to encourage regions with prominent warehouse capacity conflicts to develop deep processing of grain. At present, the grain market is sluggish, and grain processing enterprises are unwilling to buy and store more grain. Kang Xia, associate researcher at the Scientific Research Institute of the National Food and Strategic Reserves Administration, believes that the state can encourage enterprises to develop deep processing through a combination of rewards and subsidies.

In addition, experts believe that the state should strengthen the purchase and storage responsibilities of local governments, especially in sales areas, establish as soon as possible a mechanism linking the interests of major producing areas and major sales areas, and encourage major sales areas to set up production bases in major producing areas.

Innovating financing methods to expand warehouse capacity

Economic Daily reporters learned during interviews that in the next two years, China will focus on Northeast China and the rice-producing areas of the south, and build new warehouse capacity of 100 billion jin. However, the construction of grain storage facilities has a long cycle and requires large amounts of funds, and the current situation in which construction funds mainly come from finance at all levels seems difficult to sustain.

It is necessary to innovate investment and financing mechanisms, broaden investment channels, and encourage and guide grain enterprises and social capital to invest. Sun Zhiqiang, director of the Kedong County Grain Bureau in Heilongjiang, told reporters that Kedong County currently has 3 grain depots, and they are planning to build a comprehensive local grain depot with functions such as logistics, purchasing, storage and processing, requiring more than 100 million yuan in funds. Government investment cannot meet the funding needs for building the depot, so they plan to rely on the local soybean resource advantage to attract some local grain deep-processing enterprises to participate in the investment.

During interviews, Economic Daily reporters found that some new types of agricultural business entities, such as cooperatives, family farms and large specialized grain-growing households, have a strong desire to build grain depots. Yuan Dongsheng, a family farm owner in Jianshang Village, Xiangshan Town, Chongren County, Jiangxi, invested more than 400,000 yuan this year to buy 2 dryers, and is building a grain depot capable of storing more than 200,000 jin of grain. The Wanxin Agricultural Machinery Professional Cooperative in Shanqian Village, Liufangzi Street, Gongzhuling City, Jilin Province, planted more than 9,000 mu of corn this year and is planning to build a grain depot with a capacity of 30,000 tons, so as to meet the cooperative's grain storage needs while providing free grain storage services for surrounding farmers.

At present, these new types of agricultural business entities are still in the initial stage of building grain storage facilities and need greater state support. It is understood that the state has clearly proposed to increase support for new types of agricultural business entities, make full use of the agricultural machinery purchase subsidy policy, and support farmers' cooperatives and other new types of business entities in building natural ventilation warehouses, drying equipment, drying and storage warehouses and other primary processing facilities. Vigorously promote farmers' professional cooperatives in developing grain banks, providing farmers with unified drying, unified processing, unified storage and unified sales services, which has better solved the difficulty farmers face in storing grain. Vigorously promote scientific grain storage warehouses and grain drying technology to meet their growing grain storage needs.

Improving the agricultural product price formation mechanism

However, as for the deeper reasons for the current insufficient warehouse capacity, some experts believe that under the market-supporting purchase policy, grain prices only rise and never fall, and domestic and international grain prices are inverted, leading to poor grain circulation and increased inventory pressure.

At present, the state's minimum purchase price for grain has in effect become the maximum price. After the state purchases and stores grain, it sells temporary storage grain at a price that follows the market, distorting the market price formation mechanism.

Zhou Guanhua, director of the Regulation Department of the National Food and Strategic Reserves Administration, said that the administration is working with relevant departments to study deepening the reform of the grain purchase and storage system and mechanism, strengthen local government responsibilities, mobilize the enthusiasm of various grain enterprises to participate in purchasing, and protect the interests of grain farmers.

Kang Xia believes that in the long run, to stimulate the vitality of the grain market, it is necessary to comprehensively deepen the reform of the grain circulation system, reconstruct the grain price market mechanism, adjust the minimum purchase price policy, temporary storage policy and agricultural subsidy policy, and gradually implement the target price subsidy system for agricultural products. At the same time, rationalize the responsibilities of the central and local governments; the central government cannot take on everything, nor can it let go entirely. The central government should focus on regulating grains, cotton, oilseeds, sugar crops and so on, while other agricultural products should mainly be regulated through the market, and local governments should also bear the responsibility for stabilizing the market.