Raising grain prices is crucial to increasing grain production capacity
Increasing grain production capacity must rely on raising grain prices
(Agricultural Wealth Network) The National Development and Reform Commission stated that the state will adopt a series of policy measures to ensure that by 2020 the national grain production capacity is raised to more than 550 billion kg, an increase of 50 billion kg over the existing capacity. A responsible person of the Development and Reform Commission said that agriculture is still a weak link in the national economy, and grain and food security still face severe challenges.
Considering our country's grain production and supply from a strategic height, it is of course very necessary for the state to adopt a series of policy measures to increase grain production capacity and respond to the severe challenges facing our country's grain and food security, but adopting more policy measures and greater intensity to raise grain prices, ensure that grain-growing farmers increase their incomes, and protect and stimulate the production enthusiasm and creativity of grain-growing farmers is even more urgently needed at present. Even if grain production capacity is ever higher, if the income farmers obtain from growing grain crops is still lower than that from growing fruit trees, medicinal herbs and other cash crops, and lower than the income obtained from going out to work, then still not many people will be willing to grow more grain crops, and high grain production capacity will only be an empty phrase.
In recent years, because the comparative benefit of engaging in grain production is low, across our country's vast rural land, many young and middle-aged farmers have become accustomed to going to the cities to work and earn money, leaving only the elderly, the weak, women and children staying at home to manage the land, and because they lack physical strength they have to abandon cultivating part of the land, so the phenomenon of land being "left fallow" has long been widespread. It can thus be seen that our country's existing grain production capacity has not been utilized and tapped as it should be. Although the government has been committed to raising grain prices, adopting a "protective price" for grain procurement, and implementing "direct subsidies" for grain-growing farmers, its intensity still seems insufficient, and the increased income farmers obtain is often offset or "falls even deeper" because the prices of means of production such as chemical fertilizers and pesticides rise at the same time or even by a larger margin.
Therefore, to respond to the challenges of grain and food security, we must both focus on the long term and base ourselves on the present. We must both plan for the long term by increasing grain production capacity and adopt a series of policy measures to increase grain production capacity, and also adopt more policy measures to raise grain procurement prices and increase the intensity of "direct subsidies" for grain, so that grain farmers can increase their incomes more and the enthusiasm of farmers for growing grain can be mobilized. Only when the comparative benefit of farmers growing grain is raised to an appropriate level, and farmers truly feel that growing grain is also very "worthwhile", can their enthusiasm and creativity for growing grain be restored and increased, and can the plan to increase grain production capacity be put into practice, thereby better responding to the severe challenges facing our country's grain and food security.
Considering our country's grain production and supply from a strategic height, it is of course very necessary for the state to adopt a series of policy measures to increase grain production capacity and respond to the severe challenges facing our country's grain and food security, but adopting more policy measures and greater intensity to raise grain prices, ensure that grain-growing farmers increase their incomes, and protect and stimulate the production enthusiasm and creativity of grain-growing farmers is even more urgently needed at present. Even if grain production capacity is ever higher, if the income farmers obtain from growing grain crops is still lower than that from growing fruit trees, medicinal herbs and other cash crops, and lower than the income obtained from going out to work, then still not many people will be willing to grow more grain crops, and high grain production capacity will only be an empty phrase.
In recent years, because the comparative benefit of engaging in grain production is low, across our country's vast rural land, many young and middle-aged farmers have become accustomed to going to the cities to work and earn money, leaving only the elderly, the weak, women and children staying at home to manage the land, and because they lack physical strength they have to abandon cultivating part of the land, so the phenomenon of land being "left fallow" has long been widespread. It can thus be seen that our country's existing grain production capacity has not been utilized and tapped as it should be. Although the government has been committed to raising grain prices, adopting a "protective price" for grain procurement, and implementing "direct subsidies" for grain-growing farmers, its intensity still seems insufficient, and the increased income farmers obtain is often offset or "falls even deeper" because the prices of means of production such as chemical fertilizers and pesticides rise at the same time or even by a larger margin.
Therefore, to respond to the challenges of grain and food security, we must both focus on the long term and base ourselves on the present. We must both plan for the long term by increasing grain production capacity and adopt a series of policy measures to increase grain production capacity, and also adopt more policy measures to raise grain procurement prices and increase the intensity of "direct subsidies" for grain, so that grain farmers can increase their incomes more and the enthusiasm of farmers for growing grain can be mobilized. Only when the comparative benefit of farmers growing grain is raised to an appropriate level, and farmers truly feel that growing grain is also very "worthwhile", can their enthusiasm and creativity for growing grain be restored and increased, and can the plan to increase grain production capacity be put into practice, thereby better responding to the severe challenges facing our country's grain and food security.