Why does the trend toward large-scale land concentration need to be re-examined?

The food problem of a populous country has been firmly tied to the single rope of imbalanced urban-rural and regional development. Deepening the understanding of grain inventory management, properly solving the fundamental problem of grain storage, and taking preventive measures beforehand are the essence of early-warning monitoring for food security, and also the foundation of governing the country and securing the nation.

In any era and in any country, food is the first necessity of the people. Whether growing grain is worthwhile is not for you or me to decide; smallholders who make a living from the land will weigh it themselves and make the behavioral choice of voting with their feet and moving to higher ground. In which season smallholders grow which kind of grain, and when and where they store it, is the true reason for the surge in inventories. To some extent, the increase in stored grain of a certain type is a by-product of the urbanization movement. Breaking this deadlock requires genuinely optimizing the regional division of agricultural labor and fundamentally eliminating the income distribution gap between urban and rural labor.

In 1995, China's rural population reached its peak at about 860 million; thereafter it declined year by year, to about 620 million by 2014. The number of people employed in the primary industry reached 390 million in 1994, then declined year by year; as of 2014, the statistically defined primary industry workforce still stood at 230 million, a net decrease of 160 million within 21 years. The large-scale transfer of rural labor to non-agricultural industries changed the human-land relationship, causing the pace of farmland concentration to accelerate continuously.

The period from 1982 to 1991 can be regarded as the 10 years of greatest smallholder production enthusiasm in China after the household contract responsibility system was introduced, with grain output increasing by 100 million tons, from 360 million tons in 1982 to 460 million tons in 1990; among this, grain output increased by 29.48 million tons in 1982, by another 32.78 million tons in 1983, and the increase reached 38.69 million tons in 1990. It was not until 2007 that China's grain output rose to 500 million tons. From 1999 to 2003, grain output fell by about 16%, because the continuous decline in grain prices dampened farmers' enthusiasm for growing grain, and total output did not recover to the 1998 level until 2008. Judging from the time intervals between successive sharp declines and increases in grain output, it generally takes 8 to 10 years. The most recent sharp increase began in 2007 and took 6 years for grain output to rise from 500 million tons to 600 million tons, with corn showing the largest increase, and its output in 2015 basically approached its peak. Data from the National Development and Reform Commission show that in 2014 the national average net profit per mu of vegetables was 2070 yuan, about 10.1 times that of rice, 23.6 times that of wheat, and 25.30 times that of corn; taking apples as another example, the net profit per mu was 3481 yuan, 17 times that of rice, 39.6 times that of wheat, and 42.5 times that of corn.

Admittedly, it is mainly corn and wheat output and inventories that have surged in China. To explain why output rose year after year, apart from factors such as seeds and technology, the main cause is the increase in sown area. Why did the sown area increase? Because these two grain crops require less labor, making it convenient to mechanize cultivation and apply large amounts of pesticides and chemical fertilizers to save labor. Regarding the sharp increase in inventories of the two major grain crops, the author's explanation is that it stems from the structural shortage of agricultural labor: smallholders or large-scale operators converted large amounts of farmland to corn and wheat, increasing the sown area; thanks to the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and new seeds, yields per unit area also increased slightly, and the accelerating scale-up, commercialization, and mechanization caused both output and the inventory of grain for sale to grow. Using the variable of corn output in a certain local area in the south, one can infer or measure how serious the elderly agriculture problem is in that area; by the same analogy, using changes in wheat output in a certain local area in the north, one can survey how high the degree of aging of its agricultural labor force is! The linear growth trend of a single grain variety such as corn has long reflected the development dilemmas and problems of an unreasonable agricultural employment structure and land management mode, and especially the trend toward scale-up and land concentration needs to be re-examined.

Last November the Ministry of Agriculture issued guiding opinions on structural adjustment in the "sickle bend" region for corn planting, with the goal of striving to stabilize corn planting area in such regions at 100 million mu by 2020, requiring a reduction of more than 50 million mu within 6 years, and planning to reduce corn planting area by more than 10 million mu in 2016. In August 2014, when the author was conducting field research in Northeast China, on the bus route from Mishan City in Jixi City to Harbin, the land on both sides along nearly 600 km of highway was planted with corn. As a major grain-producing province in China, Heilongjiang, benefiting from its unique natural endowments, has the highest degree of mechanization, scale-up, and industrialization in corn planting. During household surveys in Mishan City, a farmer in a village outside the farm rented more than 1000 mu of land from the farm to grow corn; however, the small bungalow built by this farming household was about 80 square meters, and it was unlikely that they stored grain for sale in the way southern smallholders do, household by household, for either long or short periods. According to reports, the corn they harvested was sold directly to the nearby Sinograin purchasing base. In July 2013, the author conducted rice-planting research at a grain and oil cooperative in Quyuan District, Yueyang City, Hunan, where the rice harvested from nearly 10,000 mu of paddy fields was almost all sold to the nearby Sinograin base.

In which season smallholders plant, which kind of grain they grow, and when and where they store it, is the true reason for the surge in inventories. To some extent, the increase in stored grain of a certain type is actually a by-product of the urbanization movement. Breaking this deadlock requires redefining the agricultural industry, genuinely optimizing the regional division of agricultural labor, and fundamentally eliminating the income distribution gap between urban and rural labor. At the beginning of the 21st century, China's successive years of grain "bumper harvests" had already sounded the alarm. Relying on building granaries, promoting price marketization, and pursuing large-scale land management, industrialization, and technological upgrading cannot fundamentally ensure food security; instead, the introduction of various inducement policies requires vigilance lest all efforts be in vain. The large amount of stored grain is only due to a shift in where it is stored, from grain stored among the people (in homes) to grain stored in warehouses, and this statement can be simplified as the "storage displacement theory." In seeking the real problems of China's grain (agricultural) production in the era of urbanization, the difficulty of digital inventory management may become a heavyweight bomb endangering the great issue of feeding the Chinese people.

In a word: the food problem of a populous country has been firmly tied to the single rope of imbalanced urban-rural and regional development. Deepening the understanding of grain inventory management, properly solving the fundamental problem of grain storage, and taking preventive measures beforehand are the essence of early-warning monitoring for food security, and also the foundation of governing the country and securing the nation.