How can the competitiveness of the grain industry be improved? Multiple measures to promote development
China's grain production has achieved "twelve consecutive years of growth." Based on last year's total output of 62.1435 million tons, this is close to 1,000 jin per capita, which means the rice bowl is firmly held in our own hands. However, in recent years, China's grain has seen a simultaneous rise in "production, inventory, and imports." What does the strange phenomenon of "foreign goods entering the market while domestic goods enter the warehouses" mean? Since our production volume alone can already feed us, why are there still such large import and inventory volumes? This shows that our grain industry lacks market competitiveness.
What the market demands is low-priced, high-quality grain. Tracing this back to the problems on the supply side, it is not hard to find that China's grain sector needs to reduce costs, adjust its structure, and improve and optimize quality in the production field, and must also reduce inventory in the circulation field. In one sentence, we must improve the competitiveness of domestically produced grain relative to imported grain.
How can we improve the competitiveness of our domestically produced grain? One of the most important links is striving to lower production costs. China's per capita arable land area is at a relatively low level worldwide. For a long time, relying on manual labor to produce grain and a small, scattered business model has been the main reason for persistently high grain production costs. To reduce costs, this problem must be overcome. First, large-scale operation; second, mechanized, information-based, and intelligent production. To meet these two standards, the most favorable conditions are still in plain areas, as well as some shallow hilly and flat dam areas, because these areas concentrate China's main cities and transportation systems.
This in fact involves regional structural adjustment and reform. This requires changing several misconceptions. First, we must not give up growing grain or even compress grain production just because our current grain production costs are high; instead, on the basis of stabilizing grain, we should scientifically and rationally allocate various industries. Second, we must not assume that our current grain production capacity is excessive just because there is high grain inventory; in fact, because of our huge population base, the current grain output absolutely cannot be called excessive. In the process of advancing supply-side structural reform in agriculture, we must firmly protect the foundation of grain, strive to make up for the weak links in grain production, reduce grain production costs, improve product quality and market competitiveness, and hold the rice bowl even more firmly in our own hands.