The temporary purchase of grain to support the market has become the norm. The domestic grain price market is now multiple.

In order to alleviate the pressure of grain storage, Jilin Province encourages grain purchasing and marketing enterprises to engage in policy grain collection and storage, and five enterprises, including Jilin Dongfu Rice Company, are qualified for policy grain collection and storage. The picture shows the vertical silo invested by Dongfu Rice Company. Photo taken by Economic Daily reporter Liu Hui

At present, the shortage of storage capacity in the main grain producing areas has caused trouble to the purchase of grain. The main reason for the tight storage capacity is that grain has been harvested for many years in a row, and grain depots in various places are full. The deeper reason is that under the existing grain purchase and marketing policy, grain prices have been rising for many years, private enterprises are cautious in purchasing, state-owned collection and storage enterprises have become the main force of acquisition, and most of the grain goes to the state storage.

To solve this problem, the key is to improve the price formation mechanism of agricultural products, stimulate the vitality of the grain market, and change the current situation that the main body of the grain market relies too much on the purchase policy of supporting the market.

Grain prices are upside down.

Multiple upside-down phenomena such as the upside down of grain prices at home and abroad, the upside down of grain prices in major domestic producing areas and main marketing areas, and the upside down of finished grain and raw grain prices have led to a decline in the enthusiasm of grain processing enterprises in purchasing grain, and grain continues to flow to state-owned collection and storage enterprises.

Ding Shengli of the eighth operation station in the first management area of Beidahuang Agricultural Branch has been engaged in rice cultivation for nearly 20 years. He has planted 4500 mu of rice this year, which is growing well and is estimated to be another bumper harvest year. He told the recorder that before 2004, due to the lack of market support policy, grain prices fluctuated greatly, and the income from growing grain could not be guaranteed. After 2004, the state implemented the minimum purchase price policy of rice, and increased the sales price of rice year by year, and his income from growing grain became better and better. In order to stabilize the operating area of the land, he spent more than 10 million yuan last year to buy the right to use 4500 mu of land for 12 years.

Ding Shengli said that now he does not have to worry about whether the rice will not be sold at all. The only difference between now and before is that in the past, he mainly sold rice to a rice processing enterprise. In the past two years, as the purchase price of the state-owned acquisition and storage enterprises was higher than that of the processing enterprises, he chose to sell the grain to the local grain depot.

Ding Shengli's choice is also the choice of many farmers. In recent years, state-owned grain collection and storage enterprises have been playing a leading role in the grain purchase market. This summer, grain, oil and early indica rice had another bumper harvest, and the initial market price of new grain was lower than that of supporting the market. In order to protect the interests of farmers, a large area of major grain producing areas launched the purchase of supporting the market. Hubei, Jiangsu, Anhui, Henan, Shandong and other five provinces have successively launched wheat minimum purchase and implementation plans, and Jiangsu, Anhui, Hubei, Sichuan and other 10 provinces have successively launched the temporary rapeseed collection and storage policy. Five provinces (regions), including Hubei, Anhui, Jiangxi, Hunan and Guangxi, have successively launched the implementation plan of the lowest purchase price for early indica rice.

The acquisition, which was originally temporary, has actually become a regular policy. However, with the continuous rise of grain prices for many years, there are multiple upside-down phenomena in the current domestic grain market, such as the upside down of grain prices at home and abroad, between main producing areas and main selling areas, and between finished grain and raw grain prices. this directly leads to the more grain is harvested, the more imports, the lower the enthusiasm of purchasing grain from the main selling areas, and the inactive purchase of grain processing enterprises. Under such circumstances, the state-owned collection and storage enterprises undertake the important task of the main channel of grain purchase, open to purchase, and the grain from the main grain producing areas continues to flow to the state storage.

The state controls most of the grain sources and can effectively cope with the fluctuations in the international grain market through macro-control. However, the state buys grain at the lowest purchase price, and sells policy grain through policy grain auctions regularly organized by the National Grain Trading Center, which is not conducive to the formation of a market price mechanism. the pattern of "strong rice and weak rice" and "weak wheat" in the grain industry is difficult to break, and many enterprises are in a state of phased start-up. In addition, the upside-down price of grain at home and abroad makes it impossible for policy-oriented grain to be sold at a reasonable price, which has also become the fundamental reason why most of the grain flows to the national treasury and reserves.

Encourage more main grain reserves

The scale of national grain reserves is getting larger and larger, the pressure of storage capacity is increasing, and the financial burden is also getting heavier and heavier. In order to stimulate the vitality of the market, the state encourages multiple market entities to participate in policy-oriented grain purchases.

Qin Fu, director of the Institute of Agricultural Economics of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, believes that one of the main measures to get out of the predicament of policy storage is to promote the diversification of grain reserves and out of the growing pressure on the capacity of state reserves. While encouraging the central and local reserves to become bigger and stronger, we should encourage farmers, farmers' cooperatives, leading enterprises and other multiple entities to enter the grain reserve market. At the same time, more powerful private grain enterprises should be encouraged to participate in grain reserves, and under the premise that state-owned grain enterprises ensure food security, private enterprises should activate the market vitality of grain reserves.

It is understood that at present, some grain processing enterprises and traders with good storage conditions actively participate in policy grain acquisition. Last year, five enterprises in Jilin Province were qualified for policy grain collection and storage, and two companies from Cofco participated in policy grain acquisition. Wang Junqi, purchasing manager of Cofco biochemical Energy Source (Gongzhuling) Co., Ltd. told reporters that the company is mainly engaged in deep processing of corn starch, corn salad oil and fructose, which is adjacent to Huanglong Group, another processing enterprise of Cofco. The two enterprises have a corn processing capacity of 1.4 million tons. Now affected by the economic situation at home and abroad, corn deep processing profits are meagre, enterprises are in a state of semi-stop production. Since last year, the enterprise has participated in policy-oriented grain collection and storage, totaling about 170000 tons of grain.

While conducting research in various places, the reporter also learned that some cooperatives are actively preparing to build grain storage facilities, some for temporary grain storage and sales at the wrong time, to maximize the efficiency of growing grain, and some for the storage of grain of a policy nature. The Modern Agricultural Machinery Cooperative of Changsheng Township, Kedong County, Heilongjiang Province, built a grain depot with a storage capacity of 20,000 tons last year, and this year it plans to expand its storage capacity and carry out policy-based grain storage business.

Experts said that in order to diversify grain reserves, it is necessary to clearly define the nature of policy reserves and ensure a clear separation of policy reserves and business. The grain right of policy grain reserves belongs to the state and has a certain nature of public welfare, which provides financial subsidies and obeys grain regulation and control. Enterprises, cooperatives and even farmers participating in grain storage plans shall not dispose of grain reserves on their own. Wang Junqi told reporters that their company does not have the right to deal with grain reserves on its own, and the company needs grain for processing, which must be obtained by participating in policy grain auctions.

Target price reform to solve the problem

To stimulate the vitality of the grain market, it is necessary to comprehensively deepen the reform of the grain circulation system, improve the price formation mechanism of agricultural products, and give full play to the decisive role of the market in the allocation of resources.

Grain collection and storage diversification can alleviate the grain storage pressure to a certain extent, however, more grain processing enterprises, traders and even some cooperatives are busy with policy grain collection and storage, which will further squeeze the vitality of the grain market. Therefore, while encouraging grain purchasing and marketing enterprises to participate in policy grain purchasing, we should also encourage grain purchasing and marketing enterprises to carry out market-oriented self-owned acquisitions, so as to really stimulate the vitality of the grain market and invigorate the whole grain production chain. This requires comprehensively deepening the reform of the grain circulation system, improving the price formation mechanism of agricultural products, and giving full play to the decisive role of the market in the allocation of resources.

Lan Haitao, a researcher at the Institute of Industrial economy and Technology Economics of the National Development and Reform Commission, believes that the malpractice of the agricultural product price support policy with the lowest purchase price and the temporary purchase and storage policy as the core has become increasingly prominent, and it is difficult to adapt to the competitive environment of domestic and foreign agricultural products under the background of globalization, so we have to adopt the target price reform with price difference direct compensation as the core to replace the current price support policy for important agricultural products.

In fact, China's market-oriented reform of agricultural products has made a major breakthrough. At present, the government only implements the lowest purchase price or temporary purchase and storage price intervention for important agricultural products such as grain, cotton, oil, sugar and pork. At present, the degree of marketization of the price formation mechanism of important agricultural products is low, and a large number of general agricultural products have established a price-forming mechanism by the market. At present, under the premise of protecting the interests of farmers, the government promotes the transformation of the policies of minimum purchase price, temporary purchase and storage and agricultural subsidies to the target price system of agricultural products step by step, starting with soybeans and cotton.

It should be noted that grain is an important strategic material related to the national economy and the people's livelihood, and it is necessary to be very cautious in implementing the target price subsidy policy to ensure basic self-sufficiency in grain and the absolute safety of food rations.

Qin Fu believes that in order to achieve the goal of basic self-sufficiency in grain and absolute safety of food rations, it is necessary to continue to implement the minimum purchase price policy for wheat and rice and the temporary collection and storage price policy for corn for some time to come. this can alleviate the impact of the widening domestic and foreign price differences of rice, wheat and corn on the basic self-sufficiency of grain and the absolute safety of food rations. In the future, even when the conditions are ripe, the target price policy for the three major grains should be carried out in two steps. the first step is to take corn as the object, on the basis of the practice that corn can indeed ensure a certain degree of "basic self-sufficiency of grain". The second step is to take the two major rations of rice and wheat as the object to observe the impact on the "absolute safety of rations" within a certain period of time for the implementation of the target price.