How should substandard wheat be handled? Quickly find a way out for it
This year's summer harvest has been a torment for farmers. Continuous rain during the key periods of wheat growth and harvest has caused the imperfect grains in wheat harvested in many areas to exceed the standard, with most of it belonging to "substandard wheat" that does not meet the national procurement requirements (minimum fifth grade). How to sell this "substandard wheat" has become a source of anxiety for farmers. Over the past few days, reporters conducted on-the-spot investigations of the grain market.
Prices are low, and private enterprises still dare not buy
On the morning of June 10, cloudy. At Shatang'an Village, Hefeng Town, Lishui District, Nanjing's largest private grain trading market, the village roads were empty, with not a single grain truck in sight.
Shen Chuanjian, director of Chuanjian Grain Processing Factory, was pacing at the factory gate. The reporter asked: Director Shen, how much wheat have you purchased this year?
"I've only bought three to four hundred tons," Shen Chuanjian said. In previous years, he would buy more than 2,000 tons, with third-grade wheat at about 1.15 yuan per jin, three fen lower than the national minimum price. This year's wheat has quality problems, and the purchase price is only 0.80 yuan per jin. "Even at this price, I don't dare buy much. The wheat I've already bought I plan to sell to livestock farms, and I don't even know if they'll want it."
"The wheat has quality problems, but selling it to feed mills should be possible, right?" the reporter asked.
"Corn prices are low right now. The price delivered to feed mills is only eight mao per jin," he said. Corn has higher calories than wheat, so feed mills would rather take corn. Besides, some of this year's wheat can't even be used for feed.
Finding Geng Xiaoyun, the person in charge of the nearby Jiahe Rice Industry, the reporter asked him whether he was buying wheat. He said that in previous years he would buy about 3,000 tons, but this year he had bought less than 200 tons before the rain at the end of May, and had not bought a single grain of wheat for half a month, because flour mills absolutely will not want substandard wheat, and poultry farms are also very cautious. "In previous wheat harvest seasons, our village was full of vehicles selling and buying wheat. This year they've all disappeared."
At 4 p.m. on the 10th, at Zhoucheng Market Town, Shezhu Town, Liyang City, a boat was moored in a river at the edge of the market town, and wheat from the shore was being unloaded into the boat via a conveyor belt. A farmer who had transported wheat from Langxi County, Anhui Province, had just finished unloading. "How much per jin is the wheat?" the reporter asked. "Six mao seven," he said. Even at this price, no one in Langxi was buying it.
The person buying the substandard wheat was Hang Faming, a grain broker in Shezhu. He said he had been in this business for seventeen or eighteen years, and this was the first time he had encountered wheat of such poor quality. "I've already bought 2,500 tons," he said, at an average price of about 0.68 yuan per jin. This substandard wheat was wanted by bosses from Fujian and Guangdong to make edible alcohol. After buying the wheat, he shipped it directly by boat to Jingjiang for transshipment to them. "I only bought it after finding a buyer. No one elsewhere dares to buy it."
Worried about sales, major grain growers lament their hardships
On the morning of the 10th, when the reporter walked into the Hefeng Grain Reserve Depot in Lishui District, they met two major grain growers with worried expressions, Shen Jinshui and Cheng Shengxiao.
"More than 2,000 mu of wheat has basically been harvested," Shen Jinshui said. During last year's autumn harvest, there was continuous overcast and rainy weather, so the rice was harvested late, and the wheat was sown more than a month late. In addition, it kept raining during this year's wheat heading and harvest periods, so the yield was only 240 to 250 jin per mu, whereas in a normal year it would be 600 to 700 jin. "Not counting the land transfer fee, the cost of one mu of wheat is 490 yuan," he said. But this year's harvested wheat is of poor quality. If sold at 0.80 yuan per jin, he would lose 300 yuan per mu. "The worrying thing is that even at this price, it still can't be sold," Cheng Shengxiao said from the side. The wheat he grew had a somewhat higher yield, reaching 400 jin per mu, but not a single grain had been sold yet.
Rui Bisheng, head of the grain depot, said that after Old Shen's and Old Cheng's wheat was harvested, the depot took samples for testing and found that, due to the impact of pests and diseases, the imperfect grains in the wheat severely exceeded the standard. National regulations stipulate that imperfect grains in third-grade wheat shall not exceed 8%, and in second-grade wheat shall not exceed 6%. However, the imperfect grains in their wheat were as high as 99% in the higher case and 61% in the lower case, making it substandard wheat, which the grain depot cannot purchase. As of the 10th, the grain depot had purchased only 30 tons of qualified wheat, whereas by the same period last year it had already purchased more than 10,000 tons. "It is estimated that among the local 160,000 mu of wheat, substandard wheat will account for more than 80%."
According to regulations, state-owned grain depots cannot store substandard wheat. Taking into consideration the actual difficulties of Old Shen and Old Cheng, the grain depot signed an agreement with them to temporarily keep their wheat for them, and to disinfect the grain silo after the wheat was sold. "The problem is, we don't know when it can be sold," Rui Bisheng said.
On the afternoon of the 10th, Liu Yingmei, a major grain grower in Shezhu Town, Liyang City, let out a deep sigh as she looked at the more than 200,000 jin of wheat piled up in her own warehouse. "Not to mention the low yield, the problem is that the wheat quality does not meet requirements and cannot be sold," she said. Last year the rice yield dropped, and this year the wheat suffered disaster again, but the land transfer fee cannot be reduced by even a cent. She really felt she could not hold on any longer.
Take action, find a way out for substandard wheat
"I want to make two suggestions," Rui Bisheng said. One is whether, at the policy level, substandard wheat could be further graded, for example, if its quality meets feed standards, could state-owned grain depots be allowed to purchase a portion and absorb it themselves? The other is whether insurance companies could be asked to start insurance claims as soon as possible. He said that not long ago, major grain growers in Lishui District had reported the disaster to the insurance company, and the insurance company went to the site and took photos, but there had still been no reply. Major grain growers mostly have to settle their annual land transfer fees before June 30. If the substandard wheat cannot be sold and the claims are still up in the air, how can they afford the transfer fees?
A relevant person in charge of the Jiangsu Provincial Grain Bureau told the reporter that in order to find a way out for farmers' substandard wheat, many places in southern Jiangsu had already taken action. On June 3, the Suzhou Municipal Government issued an emergency notice requiring state-owned grain purchasing and marketing enterprises, with a sense of responsibility to share burdens with farmers and solve their difficulties, to set reasonable prices according to market conditions, not to force prices down, and to benefit farmers where possible; places with conditions should help farmers reduce economic losses through cleaning, upgrading, and grade improvement. On June 7, Wuxi City issued a notice requiring all localities to coordinate among grain, finance, and Agricultural Development Bank departments, organize the purchase of substandard wheat well, and support the funds needed for purchase and storage. Tang Minhua, director of the Liyang City Grain Bureau, told the reporter that the city had decided to adopt negotiated pricing, dedicated warehouse purchasing, separate storage, and targeted sales for substandard wheat to solve the problem of its sales channels.
The reporter learned that in mid-June, the summer harvest in the central Jiangsu region entered its peak, and around June 20, the northern Jiangsu region would also harvest summer grain on a large scale. According to the current survey, the phenomenon of imperfect grains in wheat exceeding the standard is also fairly common in the central Jiangsu region. In an emergency notice issued a few days ago, the provincial grain bureau proposed that grain departments at all levels should, with feelings for their farmer brothers, proactively serve farmers selling grain, connect with major grain growers, make appointments for purchases, and purchase at their doors; proactively organize state-owned grain depots to purchase and store substandard wheat in dedicated warehouses, encourage feed processing enterprises and industrial grain-using enterprises to enter the market to purchase, help farmers connect with sales channels, and ease the contradiction in grain selling.