Solve the "rations" of pigs to ensure national food security

With the increase of the total population, the increase of the proportion of urban population, the improvement of residents' income level, and the expansion of industrial and energy uses of agricultural products, China's grain consumption has shown an obvious trend of increase year by year in recent years. In the case of "ten consecutive increases" in grain production, the grain self-sufficiency rate has been declining, falling below 95% in 2008, below 90% in 2011 and 88.2% in 2013. As a result, the situation of grain supply and demand across the country has changed from "basic balance between supply and demand and surplus in bumper years" at the end of the last century to the current "total basic balance and structural shortage". The amount of grain imports increased year by year, and 80.25 million tons of grain were imported in 2013, 3.4 times that of 10 years ago.

The Central Economic work Conference held at the end of 2013 put food security in the first place and clearly put forward the national food security strategy that "we must give priority to ourselves, gain a foothold at home, ensure production capacity, appropriately import, and be supported by science and technology", and rely on ourselves to protect food rations. The new goal of national food security is to concentrate domestic resources on key points and achieve basic self-sufficiency in grain and absolute security of food rations. The Central Rural work Conference further reaffirmed the new concept of food security and made it clear that "the rice bowls of the Chinese people should be firmly in their own hands at all times, and our rice bowls must be mainly filled with Chinese grain."

Judging from the variety structure of grain consumption in China, rice and wheat, the main varieties of grain rations for urban and rural residents, maintain an annual output of more than 300 million tons all the year round, which is about 1.5 times the target of per capita annual grain consumption of 135kg in 2020 set in the Program for China's Food and Nutrition Development (2004-2020). In other words, under the existing circumstances, it is entirely possible to ensure the absolute safety of rations such as rice and wheat. At the same time, as another major channel of grain consumption, feed grain consumption has increased rapidly in recent years, accounting for about 1 / 3 and 2 / 3 of the total grain consumption, which has become the key to ensure the new goal of national food security.

Take 2013 as an example. The country's total pork output in that year was 54.93 million tons, an increase of 38.5 percent over 2000, accounting for about 64 percent of the total meat output. According to the current pig feed ratio of 3.5 per cent, corn, rice and wheat account for 60 per cent, 8.6 per cent and 7.4 per cent of pig feed respectively, the national pork production consumes 146.11 million tons of grain. The annual grain consumption of each fertile sow is 300kg, and the annual grain consumption of 49 million fertile sows is 14.7 million tons. Together, the above two items consume more than 160 million tons of grain. In other words, pigs "ate" 30 per cent of the total output of the three major grains in 2013, accounting for 540 million tons. More importantly, China's pig farming industry is still growing at an average annual rate of more than 2%.

Therefore, in the new national food security strategic system, in order to ensure "basic self-sufficiency in grain and absolute safety in food rations", we should not only pay attention to the problem of "food rations for more than 1.3 billion people", but also pay attention to and strive to solve the problem of "food rations for nearly 600 million pigs". Strategically, the concept of large grain should be used to consider the safety of "human rations" and "pig rations" as a whole. Tactically, it is necessary to separate the feed grain from the rations, strengthen the adjustment of the agricultural planting structure, promote the transformation from the traditional dual planting structure of "grain-economy" to the ternary structure of "grain-economy-feed", and vigorously develop forage grain varieties and grain-saving animal husbandry, which fundamentally changes the current embarrassing situation of "six livestock and pigs", which leads to "people and pigs competing for food".

To this end, the following suggestions are made:

First, we should gain a foothold at home, ensure production capacity, continue to adhere to the red line of 1.8 billion mu of arable land, strengthen policies to support grain production, strengthen the reform of the grain price formation mechanism and the circulation system, fully mobilize the enthusiasm of farmers in farming and grain production, and constantly improve the comprehensive grain production capacity. On the basis of ensuring the absolute safety of "human rations", we should scientifically manage and control industrial grain, further refine grain varieties and use structure, steadily expand the production and supply of feed grain such as corn, and promote "grain distribution between humans and pigs."

Second, actively develop modern biotechnology and feed blending technology, and constantly improve the conversion rate of pig feed. Vigorously develop high-protein forage and other "non-grain" feed, further strengthen the complementary role of crop straw and agricultural products processing by-products such as cake, wheat bran and distiller's grains in pig breeding, and take more measures to alleviate the demand pressure of pig "pig rations".

Third, speed up the adjustment of the layout of corn planting and pig production, vigorously develop feed grain alternative resources such as green roughage in areas with less light and large accumulated temperature in the Yangtze River valley, central and south-western regions, and speed up the development of live pig farming in major corn producing areas such as more light and less accumulated temperature in Northeast and North China, strive to improve the coupling between feed grain planting and pig production distribution, and reduce the cost of pig production.

Fourth, we should accurately grasp the scale and pace of grain imports, make full use of both international and domestic markets and resources, make full use of tariff quota management and the "yellow box" policy, separate rations from feed grains when importing grain, and liberalize the import of feed grains such as corn and soybean meal to a greater extent, so as to prevent the rise in international food prices and panic caused by the expansion of grain imports. At the same time, it is necessary to broaden the import channels of feed grain, adjust and supplement the domestic feed grain supply through timely and appropriate imported feed grain, effectively alleviate the pressure on resources and environment, and better ensure the safety of staple grain.

In short, attaching great importance to and making great efforts to solve the problem of "pig rations" is a major event related to the new national food security goal of "basic self-sufficiency in grain and absolute safety of rations."