How Can Rice Purchase and Storage Be Improved? Reflections Triggered by an Investigation
Governments at all levels have always attached great importance to the work concerning agriculture, rural areas and farmers. Since 2013, when the state began implementing the rice support price and other purchase policies in Jiangsu and other provinces, six departments including the National Development and Reform Commission have jointly issued the "Notice on the Implementation Plan for the Minimum Purchase Price of Mid-to-Late Rice" every year. Leaders of the national grain system, Sinograin, and the Agricultural Development Bank system, as well as those of provinces, cities and counties (districts), have successively, in accordance with the principle of "being conducive to protecting farmers' interests, conducive to safe grain storage, conducive to supervision, and conducive to sales," reasonably determined and improved matters related to the implementation of the minimum purchase price for mid-to-late rice. Entrusted purchase and storage depots and other state-owned grain enterprises have also, in compliance with relevant policies, documents and requirements, fully carried out all preparatory work for support-price and self-operated rice purchase and storage. It is a "project that wins people's hearts," and grain-growing farmers are beaming with joy.
I. Investigation and Current Status of Rice Purchase and Storage
(I) Current status:
First, launching the support-price purchase of mid-to-late rice is the Party's policy benefiting farmers. Governments at all levels and grain-related departments attach great importance to it. Purchases at entrusted depots are all conducted in accordance with the state's support-price and other policies for the year. The self-operated prices of state-owned grain enterprises for rice not meeting support-price standards are generally around 1.30 yuan/jin for mid-to-late indica rice and 1.40 yuan/jin for japonica rice. Second, due to the influence of the support price and the self-operated prices of state-owned grain enterprises, grain brokers purchasing rice offer around 1.20 yuan/jin for mid-to-late indica rice and 1.30 yuan/jin for japonica rice. Third, due to price differences and other factors, most grain-selling farmers are willing to sell their rice to state-owned grain enterprises. State-owned grain enterprises conscientiously implement the state's grain and oil purchase policies without deviation, strictly enforce purchase discipline, insist on starting work early and leaving work late every day, do not leave work until the rice is fully purchased, do not let grain-selling farmers sell grain that has been held overnight, and promptly pay for the grain sold.
As a result, most state-owned grain enterprises have full warehouses and full bins. Fourth, there is still a small portion of rice whose quality does not meet standards: most moisture content is within the standard, and a small portion can meet the standard after drying and sunning; generally, the husking yield of a mixed warehouse tests at around 80%, but according to the national standard for third-grade mid-to-late rice, impurities and husked rice outside the paddy generally exceed the standard, so a small portion of grain-selling farmers cannot have their rice purchased at the support price, cannot sell at a good price, and can only look on helplessly at the support-price purchase of rice.
(II) Causes:
1. When agricultural combine harvesters harvest rice, the rice grains and rice straw should be completely separated, but in actual operation there are still a very small amount of broken straw and residual tail stems of rice grains, forming organic impurities. These are troublesome and difficult to handle, extremely hard to clean out completely, and such phenomena occur whenever mechanical operations are used. At present, most young and middle-aged laborers in rural areas have gone out to work, do business, run factories or engage in some kind of enterprise, so they simply have no time or energy to travel about or pay attention to the quality of crops at home. The remaining labor force is unable to do what they want to do, causing impurities to generally exceed the standard by within 0.5%.
2. The rice growth period has shortened. In the past, rice in the northern Jiangsu area generally began to be sown around Qingming each year. Because of the large temperature differences, plastic film was used to cover and raise seedlings. From around the end of April, transplanting was generally carried out manually or mechanically in about 3 stages: (1) Spring crop: after releasing water and preparing fields on idle land that had not been planted with crops. (2) Rapeseed stubble: about 10-15 days earlier than the early wheat stubble, that is, immediately after the rapeseed was harvested, water was released to prepare the field and transplant. (3) Wheat stubble: generally in early June, while rushing to harvest wheat, also rushing to transplant rice seedlings, all finished by around the 10th. By mid-to-late September, the rice matured and was harvested, with a growth period of nearly 6 months, making the finished rice especially fragrant when cooked. Now rice is generally dry-sown in early to mid-June after the wheat harvest is completed, and manual or mechanical transplanting is rarely used. If manual or mechanical transplanting is used, the labor cost is 180 yuan/mu or more, plus varying amounts for lunch expenses, so the cost is high and farmers generally do not choose it. In water-deficient areas, it is sometimes postponed to around early July,
and matures and is harvested around the end of October, with a growth period of less than 5 months, causing the quality of a small portion of finished rice to decline. There are also some rice varieties that taste good but have low yields, and so are gradually eliminated, such as the 86080 variety; the Huai'an Lingqiao rice brand got its name from this variety. Some farmers report that as prices naturally rise, the costs of seed, fertilization, weeding, pest (disease) control, and mechanized operations for grain are now all relatively high.
3. When different rice varieties mature and are harvested, because rice grains are squeezed and threshed by the harvester's cutter and beaten, turned during drying and sunning, and mechanically cleaned of impurities, a very small number of rice grains are dehulled, forming husked rice outside the paddy exceeding the standard by within 2%.
4. Most of the purchase funds of entrusted purchase and storage depots and other state-owned grain enterprises come from loans from the Agricultural Development Bank. If support-price rice purchased fails inspection by Sinograin and others, it becomes self-operated rice. With uncertain market factors, enterprises are prone to losses. In addition, employee and other labor costs and bank loan interest mean that state-owned grain enterprises cannot deviate in the slightest in implementing state grain and oil policies, superior documents and meeting spirits, but being responsible for their own profits and losses makes state-owned grain enterprises dare not take risks. It is reported that a certain major grain-producing county (district) has so far had zero support-price rice purchases.
5. During the peak rice purchase period, state-owned grain enterprises are short-handed. Apart from door-to-door purchases from large grain-growing households and others, they cannot attend to other farmers.
6. Grain-selling farmers are generally far from entrusted purchase and storage depots and other state-owned grain enterprises, and handling costs are high. The handling cost for about 1.5 tons of rice reaches around 50-70 yuan.
7. Some farmers no longer practice intensive and meticulous farming, no longer regard land as their life, look only to money in everything, and pay no attention to what goes on outside their windows. Farmer Zhang Mou, from Group 9, Sancha Village, Sanshu Town, Huaiyin District, said: My family has 6 people, with less than half a mu of land per person. My grandson and granddaughter both go to school in the city. My son and daughter-in-law rent a place and run a restaurant, with an annual income of more than 100,000 yuan. Now we cannot rely entirely on farming to feed
the family. We cannot earn much money. My wife and I, an old couple, only come home during the busy farming season to work, and after that we go to the city to help our son and daughter-in-law run the restaurant. It is understood that farmers now have five hopes when growing grain: first, they hope for a good harvest this year; second, they hope for favorable weather; third, they hope the Party's farmer-benefiting policies will be implemented without distortion; fourth, they hope the harvested grain can sell at a good price; fifth, they hope the cost of growing grain can be lower.
8. State-owned grain enterprises implement standards strictly; substandard rice must undergo drying, sunning and impurity removal, causing grain-selling farmers to lose time and increase labor costs, and so they abandon distant places for nearby ones, believing it is the same wherever they sell. Although grain brokers purchase at about 0.25 yuan/jin lower than the support price and at state-owned enterprise self-operated prices, they drive vehicles from village to household, and buy once the price is agreed. Grain-selling farmers save effort, trouble and time, making it convenient and simple. Some grain brokers also build simple warehouses in front of or behind their homes or openly purchase on outdoor concrete floors. A small number of grain brokers cover the rice they purchase with only rainproof cloth or plastic sheeting before storing or reselling it. One or two people are enough to make purchases. Part of the purchased rice is paid for in cash, and for part payment is promised for a later time. Grain brokers purchasing rice does solve part of the problem of farmers finding it difficult to sell grain, but some of the purchased rice exceeds standards and is mixed together, affecting rice quality. Storage conditions are also relatively poor, and with long-term storage some even becomes moldy, making it unsafe to eat and creating certain hidden dangers for the grain security project.
9. Most state-owned grain enterprise warehouses are old and dilapidated, with insufficient storage capacity. Taking Huaiyin District as an example, the whole district currently has 900,000 mu of cultivated land, with annual output of about 280,000 tons of wheat, about 290,000 tons of rice, about 8,000 tons of other miscellaneous grains, and about 6,000 tons of oil. In 2015, the grain planting area was 1,406,900 mu, with a multiple cropping index of 1.56. The existing warehouse capacity is about 104,500 tons. As of the end of April 2016, grain in stock was 92,600 tons. All warehouses were first built in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, with outdated and backward facilities. Warehouse capacity does not match regional grain production, and also restricts the rapid development of state-owned
grain enterprises. To this end, the district has made every effort to raise funds and accelerate the pace of granary construction, striving to expand warehouse capacity by 30,000 tons before the summer grain purchase in 2016 to meet the needs of the purchase and sales market.
II. Reflections on and Improvements for Future Rice Purchase and Storage
General Secretary Xi Jinping said: "Ensuring food security is an eternal subject, and it must never be relaxed at any time." The author believes: grain security is the source of life and the foundation of development. Safeguarding the granaries of the world is already imperative. Only with sufficient grain sources, excellent quality, high output and safe storage can we effectively guarantee and implement "accumulate grain widely, accumulate good grain, and accumulate grain well," and safeguard the granaries of the world.
First, governments at all levels should further strictly perform their duties and attach great importance to grain production and quality, with the focus shifted downward. For example, in 2015 some wheat in Jiangsu was affected by disasters and reduced yields by varying degrees (including a small number of lazy people and a small number of poor households receiving minimum living allowances, etc., who had poor field management, with some harvesting only 200-300 jin/mu). The quality was not good enough, so a small portion of wheat sold for only 0.9-1 yuan/jin. Some farmers said: this is not even enough for the cost of growing grain; in a normal year, the yield should be around 1,200 jin/mu. Now that it is again time to plant rice, can the state issue a "Measures for Guaranteeing Farmers' Grain Sales in Years of Natural Disasters"?
Second, grain-related departments, in implementing state grain and oil purchase and sales policies, should continue persistently to give full play to their departmental management role and manage the "granaries of the world" well, coordinate and communicate more, think of ways, and guarantee enterprise survival and employee welfare.
Third, state-owned grain enterprises should fully give play to and fulfill the role and responsibility of the main channel, and safeguard the granaries of the world.
Fourth, regulatory departments should conscientiously implement policies and further strengthen monitoring and supervision of the grain circulation market, and resolutely revoke the business qualifications of grain operators that do not meet the conditions for grain purchase, storage and operation.
Fifth, the state support-price purchase should appropriately reduce the allowance for organic impurities within 0.5% formed by broken straw and rice grain tail stems during mechanical harvesting in rice purchasing; and appropriately relax the proportion within 2% of husked rice outside the paddy formed by mechanical harvesting of rice and warehouse sorting.
Sixth, agricultural departments should further accelerate the breeding of improved varieties with high yield, excellent quality and good taste (excluding genetically modified varieties), and vigorously guide farmers in scientific planting, so as to do a good job at the first hurdle of grain quality.
Seventh, agricultural machinery departments should develop and produce more cutting-edge, scientific, advanced and applicable agricultural machinery that can avoid phenomena such as "scattering, roughness, dripping and leaking."
Eighth, state-owned grain enterprises should set up more purchase points to solve the problem of farmers finding it difficult to sell grain, so that grain-selling farmers truly feel the superiority of the Party's farmer-benefiting policies; governments at all levels should appropriately provide subsidies to state-owned grain enterprises for setting up purchase points.
Ninth, pay more attention to investigation and research, and further formulate and improve the mechanisms and systems for grain work, so as to ensure the security of the granaries of the world.
In summary, the purpose of these reflections and in-depth frontline investigation is to let everyone understand grain, grasp the situation, facilitate work, and do grain work better and even better. As grain workers, we should first of all be duty-bound to seek benefits for farmers and bring benefits to consumers, be brave in taking responsibility, start from ourselves, do our part well, so that everyone can better serve grain work, and everyone can consciously guarantee and serve food security in action, do more practical things, and truly do good things well.