The national grain inventory has reached an all-time peak: it cannot be sold or adjusted or stored.

Experts call for reflection on price signals when grain stocks reach a historical peak

China's grain stocks are climbing to an all-time peak.

Take corn as an example. According to the China Grain Network, the surplus of corn stored in China has reached 150 million tons at present, and China's corn output in the new season this year is expected to reach 219.7 million tons. Not only corn, China Grain Network based on the number of policy grain purchases and auction transactions, the data is that China's policy wheat stocks of about 40 million tons, rice stocks are equally abundant.

Data show that China's grain imports exceeded 100 million tons for the first time in 2014. Do China's grain prices give a correct signal to the "simultaneous increase in production, imports and inventories"?

Recently, public opinion has put this issue to Chen Xiwen, deputy head of the Central Rural work leading Group and director of the office. Chen Xiwen believes that the main reason for this problem is that domestic grain prices are not competitive, and a deeper reason is that China's agricultural structure is unreasonable.

However, he still said that the "11 consecutive increases" in domestic food production have played an extremely important role in successfully dealing with the global financial crisis, and the positive significance of increasing food production should be affirmed. In Chen Xiwen's view, the problem is to speed up the transformation of the mode of agricultural production, otherwise China's agriculture will not be able to make up for its shortcomings, and China's agriculture will not be able to get out of the predicament. "China's agriculture must consider how to produce products that are more in line with demand and have production efficiency."

Chai Ning, a senior analyst at the China Grain Network Yida Research Institute, and Shen Hongyuan, a senior analyst at Zhengzhou Grain Wholesale Market, said that "simultaneous increase in three quantities" has become a new normal. China's grain market and agricultural development need more adjustment time and improvement opportunities.

The above experts suggest that the requirements for yield can be moderately reduced, and by adjusting China's agricultural planting structure, appropriately carrying out fallow cultivation and giving appropriate subsidies to farmers during the period of high-# 39; Treasury-sales ratio & # 39; Or use the "three quantity increase" period to adjust the domestic extensive mode of production, by increasing imports and expanding reserves to alleviate the pressure of domestic water resources, environmental resources and production and planting.

Emergency in granary

On October 8, the State Grain Administration issued a notice describing the current grain storage situation with two "unprecedented" terms: "at present, China's grain stocks have reached a new high, and the amount of grain stored by all kinds of grain and oil storage enterprises is unprecedented. The amount of national policy grain stored in open-air and simple storage facilities is also unprecedented."

The high level of inventory brought tension to the granary.

The Economic Observer has learned that at present, the grain stocks such as corn and rice in the Jilin branch of China Grain Reserve are seriously overloaded, of which corn is the most serious. at present, the warehouse is full and cannot be sold, adjusted, or stored.

In Henan, the largest province of wheat production, the problem of tight storage capacity of the national treasury is also prominent after launching the purchase of wheat support for many years. According to relevant personnel of China Grain Storage Henan Branch, up to now, the policy grain collected and stored in Henan area has exceeded 30 million tons. Due to the insufficient storage capacity of grain depots, it is no longer possible to start policy grain collection and storage.

To this end, the Ministry of Finance has earmarked in advance 23.8 billion yuan in subsidy funds for policy grain and oil interest and storage expenses in the first quarter of next year to support China Grain Storage in actively implementing grain purchase funds and strengthening warehousing.

There is a shortage of granaries. What went wrong?

Zhang Zhixian, deputy director of Yida Research Institute, said, "due to the implementation of grain purchase support for many years, the current policy pricing has deviated from the normal grain price in the market, which also makes the structural imbalance of domestic grain varieties increasingly prominent."

He believes that the grain collection and storage policy has stabilized the income of Chinese farmers and is an important driving force for increasing domestic grain production year after year, but continuous policy collection and storage has also led to a large number of grain sources entering the state inventory, and the state policy grain auction sales are not smooth, which has accumulated for many years, resulting in a tense situation of grain depots in some areas.

As for the large-scale advance allocation of funds by the Ministry of Finance, Jiao Shanwei, director of the China Grain Network Yida Research Institute, analyzed that, after all, replenishing warehouse capacity addresses the symptoms rather than the root causes. At present, there are shortcomings in grain logistics, emergency supply system, grain and oil quality inspection and monitoring, grain situation monitoring and early warning, promoting grain saving and loss reduction, and so on. The adjustment and reform of grain collection and storage policy. These aspects should be considered as a whole and broken down one by one.

Zhang Zhixian suggested that "subsidies for grain farmers should be increased, and on the premise of ensuring farmers' income from growing grain, we should speed up the reform of the price formation mechanism, let prices reflect the real supply and demand, and guide the adjustment of the planting structure."