Where exactly is the new way out for corn planting
Huge stockpiles, high costs, a persistently sluggish market, and increasingly lower returns. Recently, the author visited some farmers and dealers in Lushan County to discuss together the corn planting issue that everyone cares about most -
Current situation
Ordinary corn yields low returns, and sales basically make no money
Old Wang is a villager of Maizhuang Village, Malou Township, Lushan County. Although the 8 mu of Liyu 16 he planted this year was severely affected by climate and pests and diseases, it still achieved high yield thanks to its strong disease resistance.
When asked whether a bumper harvest could bring good returns given this year's low corn prices, Old Wang said he felt very fortunate. The Liyu 16 variety he planted was good and high-yielding, and the company provided full service from how to plant, how to manage, to when to harvest, with yields 300 to 400 jin higher than ordinary plots. "Although the price is still on the low side, because the per-unit yield is higher, the returns are still somewhat higher." Old Wang felt a bit comforted inside.
However, within Henan Province, farmers like Old Wang are still a minority after all. For most farmers, after deducting the costs of ploughing, pesticides and fertilizers, seeds, and mechanical harvesting, growing corn this year simply does not earn them much money. Without expert guidance and scientific farming, farmers who do not grow it well may even lose money.
Focus
What do farmers care about most when it comes to corn planting
Corn planting brings joy to some and worry to others, but what farmers care about most is no more than the following situations.
1. Variety quality
A superior variety is the foundation of a bumper harvest. Farmers generally believe that the standards for a good corn variety can be summarized as: high yield, large ears with deep kernels, good disease resistance, good lodging resistance, good grain filling, high temperature tolerance, and good drought resistance. As one old farmer said: "Farming is all about seeing a bit more grain. If a corn variety performs well and yields high, more people will naturally plant it."
2. Seed price
"Some corn seeds, such as Liyu 16, are too expensive, more than 1 times higher than other corn varieties. With corn prices so low now, it feels not worth it."
To judge whether a variety is expensive or cheap, one might as well analyze its input-to-output ratio, and then judge what kind of variety is actually the most expensive. Take Liyu 16 as an example: its unified price is 55 yuan per bag, while some corn varieties cost only twenty or thirty yuan per bag. Can it be said that Liyu 16 is more expensive than other seeds? Ordinary corn seeds may yield around a thousand jin per mu, while high-yielding varieties such as Liyu 16 can reach more than 1600 jin per mu, an increase of 200 jin per mu and more than 100 yuan in income. Obviously, which variety is actually more expensive?
3. Promotional discounts
In recent years, competition in the agricultural inputs industry has become increasingly fierce, and promotional activities have become increasingly frequent. Promotional tactics such as "buy and get free gifts" and "gifts for entering the store" are diverse, yet the results of the activities are not so ideal.
Activities held in Lushan County such as "Big Ear King" and "Grain King Contest" are quite popular among farmers. In these activities, farmers care more about whether the discount is strong: if the discount is small, farmers who travel more than ten li to the event site and see that it is not what they expected often become even more disappointed; whether the gifts are practical: if the gifts cannot be put to use, the promotional effect is minimal. At present, coupons for buying corn seeds, free pesticides, and practical daily necessities are quite popular among farmers; whether one gets the discount just by participating - this trick can effectively attract customers with relatively lower purchasing power.
For a successful marketing activity, whether the content of the activity is attractive is very important, but it must also be matched by an all-round publicity approach. To a certain extent, form matters more than content.
4. National policy
"How exactly should corn be planted now, and can the price go up? This is what farmers care about most, otherwise their enthusiasm for planting corn will be completely discouraged." Regarding corn sales, one farmer hoped that the state would give preferential policy support.
According to statistics from the State Grain Administration, after excluding warehouse transfers, the temporary storage inventory of corn in 2013 still had 49.67 million tons left, and after excluding warehouse transfers, the temporary storage inventory of corn in 2014 still had 80.29 million tons left. The purchase and storage volume of the two years brought corn inventory in 2015 to 120 million tons. This year's temporary storage purchase volume has exceeded 93.66 million tons, with total inventory reaching 250 million tons, and the pressure to destock in the future is enormous. Recently, corn prices have fallen all the way, breaking the hearts of countless farmers. Many farmers have corn piled up in their hands that they cannot sell, pinning their last hope on the direct corn subsidy policy. And the "300 yuan per ton direct corn subsidy" that everyone expects has almost become farmers' last straw. However, the 2016 corn market is destined to be oversupplied, and digesting inventory in the future is the key!
National policy documents have repeatedly mentioned marketization, but at present, getting farmers to enter the market still requires guidance from government functional departments. China still lags far behind in the information guidance it provides in agriculture, and has basically done little to guide farmers. Farmers arrange planting based only on experience, which often leads to frequent difficulties in selling, because farmers do not understand what the market truly needs and are not capable of analyzing market demand. Functional departments need to let farmers not only know what the market lacks and arrange planting accordingly, but also carry out regulation, deciding what varieties to plant in what places and how much area to plant, so as to avoid everyone rushing into the same crop, which leads to a situation where something that could have made money ends up making no money for anyone due to oversupply. This is also a way to prevent farmers from relying excessively on agricultural subsidies.
The way out
Only by planting corn this way can the "money prospects" be bright
Corn needs structural reform, that is, reducing ordinary corn and increasing the planting area of silage corn and specialty corn, which is one way out for corn planting.
It is understood that in the consumption structure of corn in our province, ordinary corn accounts for the majority. The next step is to guide farmers to reduce the planting area of ordinary corn, promote the transformation from the dual structure of grain and economic crops to the triple structure of grain, economic crops, and feed, promote the conversion of corn and other crops from grain use to feed use, change from planting grain crops to planting economic crops in suitable areas, change the separation of planting and breeding into combined planting and breeding with circular development, and gradually reduce grain corn to develop silage corn and crops such as soybeans, millet, and peanuts.
During the interview, an old farmer from Malou Township said that he had been planting Liyu 16 for six or seven years, with a total of 18 mu of land, buying 18 bags each year. All the harvested corn was made into feed for raising pigs, and the corn grown by his own family alone could no longer meet the needs of his breeding operation, so every year he still had to spend money to buy corn as feed.
Industry experts believe that the way out for planting ordinary corn lies in promoting high-yield and high-quality varieties, increasing per-unit-area yield, and letting farmers make money from growing corn. At the same time, accelerate the breeding and promotion of direct-harvest varieties, so that farmers can harvest corn kernels just like harvesting wheat, realize full mechanization of corn planting, harvesting, and storage, thereby further saving labor and reducing corn production costs.
In addition, accelerating land transfer and promoting appropriately scaled planting, by greatly reducing corn production costs and enhancing market competitiveness, so that farmers can make money growing corn in fierce market competition, is also a good choice.