The road to the main grain of potatoes is not smooth and new subsidies will not be set up for the time being.

At present, the formulation of potato staple grain is only the opinion of the Ministry of Agriculture, and it has not risen to the national level, and it has become a joint initiative of the State Food Administration and other departments. Many people are puzzled by the Ministry of Agriculture's hastily rewriting the definition of staple grain.

The road to the main grain of potatoes is not smooth and new subsidies will not be set up for the time being.

Tudou's path into the main grain sector does not seem to be going well. After the Ministry of Agriculture threw out the potato grain strategy without laying the groundwork, it received many inexplicable responses from netizens, and many experts questioned the policy of fighting for resources. The Ministry of Agriculture has recently given a detailed explanation, saying that this is the result of "scientific decision-making." Pan Wenbo, deputy director of the planting Management Department of the Ministry of Agriculture, told Caixin that he had not heard of a new subsidy for Tudou.

According to Caixin reporters, this formulation is still only the opinion of the Ministry of Agriculture, and has not risen to the national level, and has become a joint initiative of the State Food Administration and other departments.

New faces to be introduced in the main grain sector

Potato scientific name potato, hometown is South America, has been planted in China for more than 400 years, covering an area of more than 80 million mu. In fact, potatoes have long been included in China's grain statistics, and China is the world's largest potato producer, accounting for 1/4 of the world's total output. However, due to different eating habits, potatoes are mainly used as fresh dishes in China.

China talks about grain, which is divided into large caliber, medium caliber and small caliber. Large caliber refers to cereals, soybeans, potatoes, medium caliber refers to grains, soybeans, small caliber only refers to grains. There are mainly three staple grains, wheat, rice and corn. At the end of 2013, China comprehensively considered the future supply and demand situation, ecological pressure, and resource bottlenecks, and established a new food security strategy, which was updated from "ensuring the whole" to "protecting grain". The top priority is to ensure the absolute safety of food rations. Under such circumstances, the Ministry of Agriculture threw out the potato grain strategy, which made many experts feel a little confused.

To sum up, the potato staple grain strategy has two main goals: to expand the planting area of potatoes from the current more than 80 million mu to 150 million mu, which accounts for the main proportion of Chinese people's three meals a day. Dai Xiaofeng, director of the Agricultural products processing Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, explained, "what is usually eaten and held in the hand is called staple grain, and what is placed on the middle plate is called non-staple food or dishes."

In response to all kinds of public opinion, the Ministry of Agriculture has responded to several points. It is emphasized that the basic principle of saving water, land, fertilizer and medicine in potato production is not to compete for land with rice, wheat, corn and other three major grains, and to focus on the development and utilization of winter fallow fields in the south. Potato staple food is an important supplement to the absolute safety of rations, is the "icing on the cake", and meets the needs of the Chinese people to eat healthily and nutritionally.

Technological Innovation of steamed Bread with Potato

The Ministry of Agriculture has also explained whether potatoes, which have a history of more than 400 years, have not become a staple grain in China and whether they lack a "mass base".

Pan Wenbo believes that this is not only due to the traditional eating habits, but also because the public is not aware of the nutritional value of potatoes. Affected by these two factors, the breeding of special potato varieties suitable for processing is not enough, the research and development of the formula, technology and equipment for processing into staple food is not enough, and the industrialization development lags behind.

Dai Xiaofeng said that a breakthrough has been made in technology. Potato does not contain gluten protein. When making steamed bread, noodles and other staple food products, there are some problems, such as difficult forming, hard hair, high hardness, easy to break noodles, not resistant to cooking and so on. At present, the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences has successfully developed potato steamed bread with 40% potato flour and potato noodles with 35% potato flour, and initially realized industrial production. At the same time, a series of products such as potato steamed bread spontaneous flour and potato noodle flour have also been developed. "in the future, ordinary people can also make potato steamed bread and noodles at home."

Who benefits from the Tudou strategy?

However, it is clear that many people are not convinced by this explanation. "A potato is a potato. According to the market mechanism, it doesn't hurt to say that it is a staple grain. With such grandeur and defense, are you trying to compete for policy? It is difficult to understand the historical definition of rewriting staple food in such a hurry. " Cheng Guoqiang, a food expert and researcher at the Development Research Center of the State Council, openly questioned on Weibo.

One expert believes that the strategy of turning potatoes into grain put forward by the Ministry of Agriculture is driven by industrial interests from scientific research to production and management.

In 2010, Guo Fenglian, member of the standing Committee of the National people's Congress, secretary of the general party branch of Dazhai, chairman of the Dazhai Group and the "iron girl" of that year, proposed to establish the status of potato as a staple grain as soon as possible and strengthen the support and promotion of virus-free seed potatoes. She said that relying on leading enterprises, the National Potato Engineering and Technology Research Center has made breakthroughs in the cultivation of new potato varieties, large-scale production and promotion of virus-free seed potatoes. As long as the state attaches as much importance to potatoes and gives policy support as it does to grain crops such as corn, wheat and rice, China's potato production capacity is expected to double without increasing its planting area. to make great contributions to increasing grain production, ensuring China's food security, and enriching the people and the country.

In the view of some experts, the development of the industry can be solved through the market itself, and the effect of using national policy means may not be good.

Pan Wenbo told Caixin reporter that next, the Ministry of Agriculture will mainly promote the potato staple grain strategy from four aspects: the first is to strengthen planning and guidance, the second is to strengthen scientific and technological innovation and variety breeding, and the third is to strengthen the research and development of product technology, formula, and equipment. Fourth, to do a good job in publicity and promotion, "the consumption of ordinary people is the most important."