A scientific view on the tight balance control of supply and demand of agricultural products

To study the current agricultural situation, it is often impossible to avoid the judgment on the supply and demand situation of agricultural products. A more popular judgment is that the supply and demand of grain or major agricultural products in China is in a tight balance, and this tight balance will become the normal or new normal. We believe that the understanding of the tight balance between supply and demand of agricultural products from this point of view is open to question, which is not in line with the reality of the relationship between supply and demand of grain or major agricultural products in China, and is easy to mislead decision-making. At present, it is very important to implement the regulation and control of tight balance between supply and demand of agricultural products, but we must accurately understand the meaning of tight balance of supply and demand of agricultural products and strive to improve the scientific level of decision-making.

Accurately understand the meaning of "tight balance" between supply and demand of agricultural products

Tight balance is a concept corresponding to loose balance. The so-called tight balance between supply and demand, to put it simply, is a state in which supply and demand are basically balanced, but supply meets demand. In other words, the tight balance between supply and demand means that the supply is slightly less than the demand, but on the whole, it will not substantially hinder the satisfaction of the effective needs of the society, similar to "eight percent full."

(1) tight balance is the ideal state and the most possible state of the overall supply and demand of agricultural products in China under the constraints of existing resources and environment.

Judging from the current and even medium-and long-term trends, with the population growth, economic development and the improvement of the income level of urban and rural residents, the total social demand for agricultural products continues to grow, resulting in the continuous expansion of agricultural development demand for resources and environment; the diversification of agricultural demand structure and the promotion of agricultural multi-function will also form new demand for agricultural resources and environment.

At the same time, with the advance of industrialization, informatization, urbanization, agricultural modernization and greening, on the one hand, the contradiction between industrialization, informatization, urbanization, greening and agricultural modernization for resources will become increasingly fierce. The requirements for changing the utilization mode of agricultural resources and improving the grade of agricultural resources utilization are increasing. It leads to a downward trend in the proportion of agricultural development to the availability of land, capital, labor force and even talents. On the other hand, the resource, factor cost and opportunity cost of agricultural development are increasing rapidly, which leads to the rapid increase of the cost of agricultural products and the opportunity cost of agricultural development. In addition, in recent years, the ecological damage problems related to agriculture, such as the degradation of cultivated land quality, aggravation of environmental pollution and aggravation of groundwater funnel, have become increasingly prominent, which has increased the difficulty of maintaining food safety and the urgency of strengthening the ability of agricultural sustainable development. it also raises the social cost of agricultural development. Such problems have increased the difficulty and risk of increasing the effective supply of agricultural products.

According to the comprehensive balance between the supply and demand of agricultural products, at present and even in the medium and long term, if we do not pay attention to speeding up the transformation of agricultural development mode, the resource and environmental constraints facing China's agricultural development will be tightened. The existing resource and environmental constraints determine that the tight balance is likely to be the ideal state and the most possible state of the overall supply and demand of agricultural products in China, so it is difficult to ensure that the supply and demand of agricultural products in China is in a state of "loose balance" or oversupply on the whole. In recent years, China's net import of agricultural products has increased greatly and the international trade deficit of agricultural products has expanded rapidly, which provides a good explanation.

(2) tight balance is also the target model of supply and demand management and market regulation of major agricultural products in China.

The tight balance of supply and demand of agricultural products is not only different from the loose balance of supply and demand of agricultural products, but also different from the imbalance of supply and demand of agricultural products. Under the condition of loose balance between supply and demand of agricultural products, the supply and demand of agricultural products is basically balanced, but the supply is slightly larger than the demand. Compared with the tight balance between supply and demand of agricultural products, the loose balance between supply and demand of agricultural products can easily lead to a drop in the prices of agricultural products, damage the enthusiasm of farmers in production and operation or the interests of circulation links, and increase the demand for resources and environment for agricultural development. increase the possibility of forming agricultural resources and environmental problems.

The imbalance between supply and demand of agricultural products includes two states: the oversupply of agricultural products and the shortage of agricultural products. Compared with the tight balance between supply and demand of agricultural products, the problems caused by the oversupply of agricultural products are in the same direction as the loose balance between supply and demand of agricultural products, but the degree is more serious; the shortage of agricultural products often drives up the prices of agricultural products, which is easy to affect the satisfaction of the consumption demand of the public, especially the urban low-income people.

Under the condition of tight balance between supply and demand of agricultural products, we can not only avoid the loose balance of supply and demand of agricultural products, but also avoid the imbalance between supply and demand of agricultural products, and better take into account the interests of producers, circulators and consumers of agricultural products. Therefore, the tight balance between supply and demand of agricultural products should be the target mode and ideal state for China to regulate and control the market of grain or major agricultural products.

(3) the tight balance between supply and demand of agricultural products is actually a fragile, temporary and abnormal balance.

The tight balance between supply and demand of agricultural products is often not a stable balance, but a balance with a fragile foundation, and a balance in which the balance between supply and demand is easy to be shaken. This is especially true of the tight balance between supply and demand for certain agricultural products such as grain. At the starting point of the tight balance between supply and demand, if the growth of supply cannot catch up with the growth of demand, or if the foundation of supporting supply reaching a certain level is shaken while the demand is stable, the balance between supply and demand will easily be destroyed. the formation of the transformation from "tight balance" to "imbalance". Therefore, in the medium and long term, the change of demand for agricultural products and the enhancement of demand substitution effect among different types of agricultural products will increase the demand for agricultural multi-function. In the short and medium term, the increase in production, circulation costs and opportunity costs of agricultural products caused by changes in the market or price environment, and the decline in the availability of agricultural resources and elements brought about by the competition between agriculture and cities and non-agricultural industries, as well as the ecological destruction of local areas, may become the driving factors for the tight balance of supply and demand of agricultural products to imbalance. Under the condition of market economy, the imbalance between supply and demand of agricultural products is frequent and the balance is temporary. The tight balance of supply and demand of agricultural products is mainly realized in the dynamic fluctuation through the spontaneous adjustment of the market to the relationship between supply and demand, supplemented by effective policy guidance and macro-control.

In the supply and demand management and market regulation of agricultural products in China, realizing the tight balance between supply and demand of grain or major agricultural products can only be the target model and ideal state, not the normal or new normal. If the tight balance is regarded as the normal or new normal of the relationship between supply and demand of grain or major agricultural products in China, it is not only not in line with the reality of the relationship between supply and demand of grain or major agricultural products in our country, but also easy to mislead. People mistakenly think that at present or in the future, whether in general or in specific types of major agricultural products, tight balance can always be easily achieved, thus neglecting the importance and urgency of regulating and controlling the tight balance between supply and demand of agricultural products. And increase the possibility of loose balance or imbalance between supply and demand of agricultural products.