Grain storage without spoilage, so farmers can have peace of mind
Continuous rain, tight warehouse capacity, lots of substandard grain, prices hard to raise... The 2016 summer grain purchase was a troublesome harvest and a severe test. "The grain issue is always a top priority; the interests of grain farmers must not be harmed under any circumstances!" Jiangsu Provincial Party Committee and provincial government leaders repeatedly emphasized.
The two words "grain" and "farmer" carry a thousand catties of weight. The Jiangsu Provincial Party Committee and provincial government placed national interests and the people's interests in the highest and most supreme position, adopted multiple measures to vigorously resolve the difficulties of grain farmers; relevant departments and local organizations did their utmost to let grain farmers sell more "worry-free grain."
De-stocking and increasing warehouse capacity
Jiangsu, the "land of fish and rice," achieved "12 consecutive increases" in grain. Facing new problems this year such as sluggish market purchasing and prominent warehouse capacity contradictions, Jiangsu's relevant departments and organizations at all levels innovated work and service concepts, opened up new ways to de-stock, and strived to prevent farmers from holding back grain.
The provincial government therefore required intensifying de-stocking efforts and vigorously increasing summer grain purchase warehouse capacity. Chen Jie, director of the Provincial Grain Bureau, introduced that three main countermeasures were adopted: innovatively implementing rewarded sales, optimizing reserve rotation methods, and accelerating self-operated grain sales.
The provincial government rewarded the sale and outbound delivery of minimum purchase price grain from inventory, with cities and counties providing corresponding fiscal support to increase the sales volume of minimum purchase price grain. After the reward policy was issued on April 12, the province's minimum purchase price grain auctions totaled 1.11 billion jin, accounting for 83% of the national transaction volume during the same period.
Yancheng City, one of the 18 major grain-producing cities nationwide with over 10 billion jin of output, exceeded 10 billion jin for 8 consecutive years and is Jiangsu's only major grain-producing city with over 10 billion jin. By the end of April 2016, the city had 100,000 tons of empty warehouse capacity, only 1/12 of the purchase volume. All 9 counties (cities, districts) in the city issued policies, squeezing out fiscal funds to support grain de-stocking. Funing County took the lead in the city by issuing a policy granting a reward of 0.04 yuan per jin for grain de-stocking. On a single trading day of May 10, Yancheng City completed transactions of 29,962 tons, exceeding a quarter's trading volume for this year. By the start of summer grain purchasing, the city's auctions had sold 200,000 tons of market-support grain.
Optimizing reserve rotation methods means accelerating reserve rotation outbound and increasing summer grain rotation purchase warehouse capacity. Summer grain purchasing has a short duration, large concentrated market volume, and little room for maneuver. To ease the warehouse capacity pressure of summer grain purchasing, local reserve grain was rotated out in advance by appropriately extending the idle period. Yancheng's grain department adopted multiple measures of "auction, rotation, transfer, and lease," rotating out local reserve grain in advance by appropriately extending the idle period. By the end of May, the city had rotated out over 200,000 tons of central, provincial, municipal, and county reserve grain. State-owned grain enterprises leased nearly 100,000 tons of warehouse capacity from social enterprises, actively helped qualified private enterprises apply to participate in market-support purchasing, and successively reported two batches of 3 private enterprises with usable warehouse capacity of 45,000 tons. The province rotated out 1.15 million tons of local reserves.
To accelerate self-operated grain sales, the Provincial Grain Bureau guided localities to adopt methods such as reducing outbound delivery fees and appropriately conceding profits, actively organizing intra-provincial and inter-provincial production-sales cooperation, and accelerating the sale and outbound delivery of over 1 million tons of self-operated grain. Jianhu County's grain department adopted the "three batches" approach: openly purchasing one batch, pre-order purchasing one batch, and mobilizing and organizing the purchase of one batch, to accelerate self-operated grain sales. They promised farmers that qualified grain would be openly purchased, and the grain department would not reject a single grain of qualified grain. They created a pre-order purchasing "one-card" system, conducting a survey and registration of large grain-growing households, grain brokers, and family farms throughout the county to check quality, establish electronic archives, and implement pre-order purchasing. Through these measures, over 70,000 tons of wheat were additionally consumed.
According to statistics, since the beginning of this year, Jiangsu province's grain "de-stocking" has reached 2.75 million tons. In addition, through new construction, consolidation, erecting canopy shelters, and leasing social warehouse capacity, the contradiction of insufficient warehouse capacity has been effectively alleviated.
Ensuring market-support purchasing
High output, high warehouse capacity, high imports -- China's grain "three highs" have brought enormous pressure to grain production and operations, and market-support purchasing faces considerable difficulties. "The interests of grain farmers must not be harmed under any circumstances!" Jiangsu held five successive provincial meetings of grain bureau directors, deputy directors in charge, and private
enterprise meetings to deploy purchasing work.
The Provincial Grain Bureau strengthened coordination with the Nanjing Branch of Sinograin, the Provincial Agricultural Development Bank, and other relevant departments to jointly study and carry out summer grain purchasing work. On June 2, a provincial summer grain purchasing teleconference was held. On June 3, minimum purchase price purchasing was fully launched, with two batches of 717 entrusted purchasing and storage depot points established, openly purchasing grain meeting national quality standards, stabilizing market prices, and protecting the interests of grain-growing farmers. Localities responded actively and implemented measures in place.
Provincial, municipal, and county levels all established a summer grain minimum price purchasing joint conference system led by the grain bureau with participation from municipal Agricultural Development Banks and Sinograin directly affiliated units, to promptly coordinate and resolve problems arising in minimum price purchasing. Precise pre-order purchasing was carried out, ensuring there were name lists, pre-orders, channels, and dedicated warehouses, with 17,345 large grain-producing households connected throughout the province.
Xuzhou, Lianyungang, Huai'an, Yancheng, and Suqian focused on minimum price purchasing as the main approach, openly purchasing and fully receiving wheat meeting minimum purchase price quality standards, upholding the bottom line that farmers who grow grain can sell it, and strictly preventing farmers from "having difficulty selling grain."
Suzhou City strictly implemented the national minimum purchase price policy, openly purchasing and ensuring full receipt. All purchasing depot points proactively connected with large grain-growing households, adopted methods of early sample delivery and pre-order purchasing, adhered to shift-based batch operations, extended purchasing hours, and kept dryers running 24 hours with people rotated but machines never stopped, minimizing farmer losses as much as possible.
Gaoyou City focused on market-support purchasing as the main approach, openly purchasing and fully receiving wheat meeting market-support purchasing quality standards, upholding the bottom line that farmers who grow grain can sell it, and strictly preventing farmers from "having difficulty selling grain." As of June 25, the city's state-owned grain enterprises had received 62,000 tons of wheat, including 37,000 tons through market-support purchasing.
Peixian County Grain Bureau's 23 entrusted purchasing and storage depot points, after the "Wheat Minimum Purchase Price Implementation Plan" was launched, provided precise pre-orders and door-to-door services in accordance with the requirements of "five do's and five don'ts" and "ten must-nots." Especially for large grain-growing households, they innovated the "four haves" service model, ensuring there were name lists, pre-orders, channels, and dedicated warehouses.
Jianhu County created a grain purchasing APP platform, publishing all of this year's market-support purchasing policies, as well as all participating market-support purchasing points, locations, contact information of those in charge, and national price guidance standards. It can monitor the purchasing scenes in each town, letting farmers sell grain transparently, with confidence, and satisfaction. At the same time, the nationally published grain purchasing policies were compiled into messages and publicized on a roving basis among various townships, large grain-growing households, and farmers.
Actively purchasing "substandard grain"
Due to climatic reasons, Jiangsu's wheat sowing period was delayed last year, and after the beginning of spring there were two bouts of "late spring cold." During key stages such as sowing, heading, and harvesting, there was continuous rainy weather. In some areas, the rate of fusarium head blight and wheat moisture were relatively high, imperfect grains were numerous, and the proportion of substandard grain was relatively large. Some grain could not be sold at the minimum purchase price and could not enter grain warehouses, causing relatively large losses for grain farmers.
How can the government minimize the losses of grain farmers? Jiangsu proposed and implemented three measures: purchase-and-sell immediately. Coordinate with feed and industrial grain enterprises within and outside the province, adopt a purchase-and-sell-immediately approach, directly connect with grain-growing farmers, especially large growers, and purchase substandard wheat for processing and production. Purchasing and storage on behalf. For processing and conversion enterprises lacking funds and warehouse capacity, state-owned grain enterprises organize purchasing through the method of purchasing on behalf and storing on behalf. Designated purchasing. Formulate substandard wheat purchasing and sales plans on a county (city, district) basis, designating state-owned grain purchasing and sales enterprises to purchase in a standardized and orderly manner, store and sell by grade and by warehouse.
Nanjing, Suzhou, Wuxi, Changzhou, Zhenjiang, and other places formulated substandard grain purchasing measures. On the basis of guiding and helping farmers with conditioning, they actively purchased farmers' substandard wheat, ensuring that farmers' substandard wheat had a market, alleviating farmers' difficulties in selling grain as much as possible, and letting substandard grain also sell satisfactorily. Nantong City proactively contacted large feed processing enterprises within and outside the province to purchase local grain sources. Taizhou City organized enterprises to purchase and sell immediately and signed substandard grain sales contracts with sales areas such as Guangdong, actively digesting substandard grain sources.
Xinghua City is a national grain production model county for many years. Since late May, affected by continuous rainy weather, summer grain showed a "three lows and one high" phenomenon: low output, low quality, low price, and high moisture. Xinghua City therefore convened a coordination meeting of more than 60 heads of drying enterprises across the city, proposing solid and effective measures to help grain farmers reduce losses. So far, 300 million jin of high-moisture grain has been dried.
Due to the high attention of the Provincial Party Committee and provincial government, and the active efforts of all localities and relevant departments, Jiangsu's summer grain purchasing work has advanced smoothly overall. As of June 27, the province had received a cumulative 7.505 billion jin of wheat, including 5.046 billion jin purchased by local state-owned enterprises and 2.459 billion jin purchased at minimum price.