Take good care of the grain reserves that protect the rice bowls of the people

The establishment of a central grain reserve system is a major strategy to ensure China's food security. In recent years, the central government has established a new national food security strategy of "giving priority to ourselves, having a foothold at home, ensuring production capacity, appropriately importing, and supporting by science and technology," emphasizing that "the rice bowls of the Chinese people should be firmly in their own hands at all times." To maintain food security, there should be not only a red line of cultivated land and water resources, but also a red line of grain reserves.

Since 2004, when China liberalized the grain market in an all-round way, China has gradually established a grain price control system with the policy of supporting the market and the regulation and control of imports and exports as the main contents, which has played an important role in promoting grain production and increasing farmers' income. China Grain Reserve shall be entrusted by the State Council as the main body of the minimum purchase price and temporary purchase and storage policy, and shall, together with relevant parties, organize the purchase of policy grain and oil.

As the main force of grain macro-control, stored grain has played an important role in ensuring national food security: first, to stabilize the city. From 2005 to 2014, a total of 560 million tons of supported and temporary grain reserves were purchased, with policy sales of 410 million tons. International grain prices fluctuated more than 40% several times a year, while domestic raw grain prices maintained a moderate annual increase of about 10%, successfully responding to the impact of the international food crisis and promoting China's overall macro stability. The second is to sympathize with farmers. China Grain Storage has implemented the national protective collection and storage policy for 10 years in a row, which has effectively prevented "cheap grain from harming farmers", guided farmers' income to increase steadily, and protected farmers' enthusiasm for growing grain. The third is to prepare for famine. Through the counter-cyclical operation of "selling high and absorbing low" and "making up for apology with abundance", stored grain has played an important role in dealing with major natural disasters and emergencies.

At present, China's grain work is facing some new challenges, such as the "ceiling" of grain prices, the "floor" of production costs, the "yellow line" of agricultural subsidies, and the "red light" of resources and environment. The domestic grain supply is sufficient, but the market demand is weak, the price continues to hang upside down, the enthusiasm of the main body of the market to enter the market is not high, the scale of policy grain collection and storage has increased significantly, and the pressure of inventory storage is great. In this regard, China Grain Storage unswervingly takes "ensuring the true quantity and good quality of grain and oil reserves, and ensuring that the country can adjust and use it when it is in urgent need" as the central task, and resolutely control and control the grain that protects the rice bowls of the people. At present, the central government in charge of grain storage has reached an all-time high and has the ability to maintain supply and stabilize prices when needed by the state.

In the past few years, the ability of China Grain Storage to ensure emergency supply and stabilize the city has been tested many times in emergency relief. For example, in response to Wenchuan, Zhouqu, Ya'an, Ludian and other earthquake disasters and drought in some areas, rapid arrangements for the release of grain reserves and emergency processing to ensure the stability of grain supply and market after the disaster. For example, in recent years, some directly owned warehouses have "cleared zero" large areas of inventory in the process of implementing national selling orders and stabilizing the market. Zero clearance is the best test for the quantity and quality of grain and the executive ability of enterprises, and the stored grain has successfully completed the national task.

Vertical management to ensure grain quality in accordance with national policies, China Grain Storage adopts a system of entrusted collection and storage. The entrusted storage sites shall be jointly designated, jointly organized for acceptance, jointly responsible for the quantity and quality of purchased grain, inventory management and sales out of the warehouse, and jointly implement the minimum purchase price and temporary purchase and storage policy. As a contract, Party A signed an entrustment purchase and storage contract with local enterprises. At present, 87 per cent of the minimum purchase price and temporary grain and oil storage are scattered and stored in more than 11000 places and private enterprises.

The national minimum purchase price and temporary storage policy clearly specify the basic qualification conditions for entrusted storage points, including grain purchase qualifications, industrial and commercial registration, Agricultural Development Bank account opening, self-owned warehouse capacity, warehouse conditions, facilities, personnel and other basic conditions, as well as a high level of enterprise management and credit rating, and no violations of discipline in the collection, sale and exit of the warehouse within 3 years. The entrusted storage and storage sites shall be jointly determined by the China Grain Storage Branch, the provincial grain administrative department and the provincial branch of the Agricultural Development Bank, and announced to the public.

The reason why the "minimum protection price" is only to cover the bottom rather than to cover it all, because the "minimum protection price" is a minimum guarantee for grain farmers to avoid grain production fluctuations caused by cheap grain and hurting farmers. It is based on the premise of ensuring that the market mechanism plays a full role, and it is a "surplus" acquisition, not a substitute for market acquisition.

According to the current policy, the loans needed for the purchase of entrusted storage sites shall be uniformly undertaken by the direct treasury of China Grain Storage to the Agricultural Development Bank, and shall be paid in advance to the entrusted storage points in time according to the situation of the acquisition and the progress of storage, so as to ensure the supply of acquisition funds. The standard of subsidy for entrusted storage points is the same as that for directly affiliated warehouses, and the subsidies will be allocated quarterly in full amount of stored grain.

In order to ensure that the grain out of the warehouse can reassure the society, the first is to establish a "vertical management line" of grain, set up a three-level "grain law enforcement" team, and the head office will directly organize inventory inspection. Strictly limit the bottom line of the index of "two guarantees" and seriously investigate and deal with violations with the system of "zero tolerance". Second, we will make every effort to promote full coverage of incoming grain quality and quantity inspection, full coverage of intelligent management, full coverage of green science and technology storage, and full coverage of modern storage infrastructure, so that China stored grain will become a model for the national grain industry.

The annual purchase allows farmers to obtain affordable grain storage, and the annual grain purchase involves a number of varieties, covering most parts of the country, throughout the whole year. Among them, the state has set a specific implementation time for the purchase of wheat from late May to the end of September, from mid-July to the end of September for early indica rice, from mid-September to the end of January for middle and late rice in eight southern provinces, from the first ten days of October to the end of February for japonica rice in three northeastern provinces, and from November to the end of April for corn. During the execution time, when the market price is higher than the minimum purchase price, the acquisition of supporting the market shall be stopped in accordance with the provisions of the State. The period of rotation acquisition of China Grain Reserve is longer than that of supporting cities and temporary reserves. It can be said that regardless of the extreme heat or severe cold, the grain storage staff are in the forefront of serving the "agriculture, rural areas and farmers".

In order to make it convenient for farmers to sell grain, reasonable storage points should be arranged in grain storage to facilitate farmers to sell grain, so as to ensure that it is not difficult for farmers to "sell grain." At the same time, strengthen the supervision of policy implementation. We will strictly implement the state policy of collecting and storing quality prices to ensure that farmers can enjoy substantial benefits. In addition, China Grain Storage implements "one-stop" services and extension services to provide grain brokers and large grain growers with services such as personnel, technology, facilities and equipment for grain storage, so as to help farmers sort out their grain, meet their needs for selling gross grain and land grain, and maximize their income.