Be open to the surge in grain imports

China imported 11.34 million tons of grain and cereal flour in the first seven months of this year, an increase of 80.7 percent over the same period last year, according to data released by the General Administration of Customs on Friday.

The types of cereals and grain flour imported from China mainly include wheat, rice and rice, corn, barley and so on. Among them, wheat, rice, rice and corn are the main food rations in China.

In grain imports, wheat and barley are relatively stable, rice and rice imports are small, corn imports are unstable, but corn imports have a gradual increasing trend. From January to June, China imported 2.57 million tons of wheat, accounting for 26 percent of grain imports, followed by barley imports of 2.43 million tons, accounting for 25 percent of grain imports, and corn imports of 2.07 million tons, accounting for 21 percent of grain imports.

Due to the large increase in grain imports compared with the same period last year, some media are worried about domestic food security. Shennong believes that we should keep an open attitude towards current grain imports.

First of all, China's annual grain output is about 530 million tons, and even if it imports 25 million tons this year, the import dependence is less than 5%, which is still within an acceptable range.

Due to the limited land and water resources in China, the increase rate of domestic grain production has gradually declined, while grain consumption, especially feed consumption, has increased rapidly in recent years, so when grain prices in the international market are relatively low, it is appropriate to reasonably increase grain imports.

Secondly, from the perspective of various categories of grain imports, barley and wheat account for a large proportion of imports, and barley is rarely planted in China. Like soybeans, the gap is large and the degree of import dependence is high, but the impact of barley on domestic food and feeding is limited.

With the improvement of people's living standards, more and more "strong gluten and weak gluten" wheat are imported from abroad to meet the needs of processed bread, cakes and high-quality food.

Therefore, although the growth rate of grain imports is relatively fast this year, the degree of import dependence is still acceptable, and the import uses are more used to supplement the shortage of domestic varieties, and there is no need to worry too much about increasing grain imports when international grain prices are at a low level.