China's trade deficit in agricultural products will become the norm

Although China's grain production has achieved "11 consecutive increases" since 2004, the trade of agricultural products has shown a "double normal" phenomenon of deficit normalization and price upside down normalization.

This was learned from the 2015 (third) China Food and Food Security Strategy Summit.

According to Ye Xingqing, head of the Village Department of the Development Research Center of the State Council, with the increase in grain imports, China's agricultural trade has been in deficit for 11 consecutive years, and the deficit has gradually expanded, and the agricultural trade deficit will become the norm.

Statistics show that China's grain imports exceeded 100 million tons for the first time last year. In recent years, with the rapid expansion of the trade deficit of animal products, the net imports of rice, wheat and corn have appeared for four consecutive years, while the imports of sorghum and DDGS (corn lees protein), the substitute of corn, have also increased greatly in recent years.

Experts believe that the deficit in agricultural trade is related to the upside-down of prices at home and abroad. Affected by the decline in the prices of agricultural commodities in the international market in recent years, the lowest domestic purchase prices and temporary collection and storage prices remain high and other factors, the phenomenon of inverted prices of agricultural products at home and abroad is becoming more and more obvious. "from the point of view of the natural endowment and development stage of China's agricultural production, the cost of agricultural products in China is still on the rising channel in the future, and the price upside down will become the norm in the medium and long term." Ye Xingqing said.