The price of grain, cotton, oil, sugar and meat is upside down: it is not all caused by imports.

To solve the problem of price inversion of major agricultural products, the urgent task is to comprehensively use quota management, trade relief, control of the use of imported products, inspection and quarantine, "green box" subsidies and other means. However, the fundamental solution is to adjust the agricultural structure under the guidance of market demand so as to improve the competitiveness of China's agricultural products.

A few days ago, Shen Danyang, a spokesman for the Ministry of Commerce, said in response to "the signing of the China-Australia free trade zone agreement will have a further impact on the domestic dairy industry," saying that this concern is understandable, but there is no need to exaggerate it. Shen Danyang believes that the emergence of the phenomenon of "difficulty in selling milk" in China is due to the large price gap between domestic and foreign dairy products and the increased use of imported dairy products by domestic enterprises, which is also related to the relatively low level of the domestic dairy industry as a whole and consumers' lack of confidence in domestic dairy products.

In fact, dairy products are not the largest imported varieties of agricultural products in China. At present, China mainly imports grain, cotton, oil, meat, eggs and milk. In addition to dairy products, China also imports more than 60 million tons of soybeans, nearly 15 million tons of grain, more than 4.5 million tons of cotton, more than 4.5 million tons of sugar, and more than 8 million tons of vegetable oil every year.

Due to the shortage of land, water and the pressure of resources and environment, moderate import is necessary to meet the diversified needs of the market, which not only helps domestic consumers to buy high-quality and cheap products, it is also an important embodiment of China's agricultural participation in the international market. Experts believe that an appropriate amount of imported agricultural products can replenish domestic stocks and reduce the pressure on domestic resources and environment. However, it is necessary to grasp the scale and rhythm of imports and prevent the concentrated and mass imports of individual varieties from impacting domestic production, which will adversely affect the employment and income of farmers.

It is worth noting that in recent years, the domestic market price of China's major agricultural products, such as grain, cotton, oil, sugar and meat, has been comprehensively higher than that of foreign products imported within the quota, and some products were once higher than the after-tax price of imports outside the quota. Since the new century, the domestic and foreign prices of pork, wheat, sugar and cotton have begun to hang upside down one after another. in July 2013, the domestic prices of rice and corn continued to be higher than the import after-tax prices within quotas. In 2014, major agricultural products, such as grain, cotton, oil, sugar and meat, showed an overall upside-down trend. According to the Ministry of Agriculture, in November 2014, the domestic and foreign price differences of rice, wheat and corn were as high as 1.08 yuan per kilogram, 0.58 yuan and 0.52 yuan per kilogram, respectively, all larger than in 2013.

Zhang synthetic, director of the Marketing Department of the Ministry of Agriculture, believes that the fundamental reason for the price upside down is the weak competitiveness of agricultural products in the market due to the shortage of agricultural resources, low labor productivity and rigid rise in production costs. the direct reason is the lack of agricultural support and protection measures such as tariffs and subsidies.

The cost of agricultural production in China continues to rise while the comparative benefit decreases. On the one hand, agriculture has entered a high-cost era. From 2006 to 2013, the average annual growth rates of production costs of rice, wheat, corn, cotton and soybean were 11.0%, 11.6%, 11.6%, 13.1% and 12.0%, respectively. At present, the cost of agricultural production is still rising. On the other hand, the net income of farmers growing grain is declining. At present, the net income of farmers per mu of land is only 682 yuan, down 2.4 percent from the previous year. Farmers' income from the planting industry accounts for only 24.6%. Farmers' net income is decreasing, so their enthusiasm for production is naturally not coming up. Many farmers sigh, "A year of hard farming is not as good as going out to work for a month."

At the same time, China's agricultural support and protection measures are insufficient. According to the estimates of the World Bank, in 2013, the per capita agricultural added value of China's agricultural labor force was only 64% of the world average. However, the average tariff on the import of China's agricultural products is only 15.2%, and the average tariff level of the world's agricultural products is 62%. Moreover, the special trade safeguard mechanism has been abandoned, and there is still a big gap between domestic agricultural subsidies and developed countries. In addition, the continuous decline in international shipping costs in recent years has contributed to the widening of the price gap at home and abroad.

Experts believe that at present, the negative impact of price inversion is more prominent. Therefore, it is urgent to make comprehensive use of quota management, trade relief, control of the use of imported products, inspection and quarantine, and "green box" subsidies to prevent the negative impact of price inversion from further expanding, and to maintain the three bottom lines of farmers' income, food rations production capacity, and the supply of important agricultural products.

"from the perspective of getting to the root of the problem, it is necessary to adjust the agricultural structure under the guidance of market demand, so as to effectively improve the competitiveness of China's agricultural products." Zhang Zhe believes that according to the changes in market supply and demand and regional comparative advantages, it is necessary to promote the agricultural structure to adjust to the integration of market shortage products, high-quality and characteristic products, and cultivation plus production and marketing, so as to expand the versatility and value-added space of agriculture. In particular, it is necessary to take the brand as the lead to promote the transformation of the development mode of the processing industry, promote the transformation of the agricultural products processing industry from scale and quantity expansion to quality improvement and structure optimization, and establish a benefit sharing mechanism between agricultural products processing enterprises and farmers.