The current drought has little to do with increased food imports

At present, some major grain producing areas in China are suffering from severe drought, which has an impact on the growth of local autumn grain. According to data released by the General Administration of Customs, China imported a total of 11.34 million tons of cereals and cereal flour in the first seven months of this year, an increase of 80.7 percent over the same period last year. Some people wonder whether the drought will lead to an increase in food imports. In this regard, a reporter from the Economic Daily conducted an investigation and interview--

In Xiang Liu Village, Qiaoling Town, Pucheng County, Shaanxi Province, farmers Sun Gongli's land has not been watered and has been harvested, but in the nearby Qiaoling Town farmland water-saving demonstration area, corn is growing well. Dang Gaobing, director of Pucheng County Agricultural Technology Center, said that the demonstration area has adopted drip irrigation under plastic film, which can save 2/3 of water. Even if it is so dry this year, drip irrigation can still use limited water resources to meet the growth needs of corn. According to the statistics of the Agriculture Department of Shaanxi Province, the affected area of autumn grain in the province has reached 4 million mu, of which 2 million mu has been affected, with a total harvest of 200000 mu.

According to the statistics of the State General Administration of Prevention and Control, as of August 12, the drought area of crops in the country was 65.89 million mu, and the main drought indicators were lower than the average value for the same period of many years. With the change of the drought, the central government has allocated a total of 560 million yuan in subsidies for drought relief, supporting localities in the "battle" for drought relief and disaster reduction. Since the beginning of summer, Hebei, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia and other provinces (regions) have invested 9.12 million people in drought-resistant labor and irrigated 170 million mu of drought-resistant water.

Henan is a drought-stricken area, and the drought-affected area is nearly half of the country's total. Wei Mengguan, deputy director of the Provincial Department of Agriculture, said that this year's drought is mainly due to the superposition of meteorological drought and lack of water sources, and the rainfall is the lowest in the same period since 1951. Due to three consecutive years of summer drought, the reservoir capacity has decreased, the amount of water in the river has decreased, the groundwater level has dropped by more than 10 meters in the past 20 days, and there is a serious shortage of drought-resistant water resources in some places.

The outstanding local drought does not mean that the drought is serious in the whole country. Li Guoxiang, a researcher at the Rural Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told reporters that drought occurs every year in China, and the country's grain sown area is stable at more than 1.6 billion mu all the year round, and the drought area this year is about 60 million mu. Although the drought in some areas is more serious, on the whole, the proportion of affected areas is still lower than that in previous years, and the overall growth of autumn grain in the country is optimistic.

The Ministry of Agriculture said that the current drought is regional and has an impact on local autumn grain production, but in most of the main autumn grain producing areas in Northeast China and the Yangtze River Basin, the soil moisture is sufficient, the growth process is normal and the growth is generally good. At present, the unaffected areas of the drought-stricken provinces have high temperature and sufficient light, and autumn grain crops such as corn are growing well, and can also offset some of the disaster losses.

At present, the heavy arid areas are mainly concentrated in the traditional arid areas to the north of the Huaihe River and the south of the Yellow River and the old arid areas in the northwest and Inner Mongolia. The main autumn grain crop in these areas is corn. Experts from the Maize expert guidance Group of the Ministry of Agriculture believe that the current drought mainly affects "both ends." on one end, the early sowing corn has begun to produce male seeds, resulting in a rare flowering period; on the other hand, there are fields with late sowing time and weak growth, where the plants have not yet been ridged, the soil moisture is lost quickly, and the leaves wilt and curl.

The annual grain output consists of summer grain, early rice and autumn grain. Previous data from the Ministry of Agriculture show that the country has had another bumper harvest of summer grain, an increase of 3.6 percent over last year; the per unit yield of early rice has increased slightly, with a flat yield trend in most major producing areas, and the total early rice yield is expected to reap another bumper harvest; as for autumn grain, it is estimated that the sown area of corn, rice and other high-yielding crops will increase by more than 9 million mu this year. At present, domestic grain stocks are at an all-time high.

Obviously, the increase in imports does not mean that there is a domestic food shortage, but because international food prices are lower than domestic food prices. The international prices of wheat, corn and rice continue to fall, and the import CIF customs value is generally lower than the domestic price. Since the tariff on imported grain within the quota is only 1%, as long as the price of foreign grain is lower than that at home, traders naturally think it cost-effective and can import it. Of course, when international food prices are low, importing an appropriate amount of grain to replenish domestic stocks can reduce the pressure on domestic resources and environment.

According to statistics, at present, US corn is 0.97 yuan per jin, 0.3 yuan lower than in China, Thai rice 1.35 yuan per jin, 0.72 yuan lower than domestic late indica rice, and Australian mixed wheat 0.99 yuan per jin, 0.41 yuan lower than domestic high-quality wheat. Affected by the widening price gap at home and abroad, from January to May, China's net grain imports were 8.279 million tons, an increase of 90.5 percent over the same period last year, of which wheat imports were 2.459 million tons, an increase of 1.1 percent. In recent years, China's imports of rice, wheat and corn account for only 2.4% of the domestic output.

In addition, there are also variety adjustment factors in the increase in grain imports. In China, special varieties such as strong gluten wheat, weak gluten wheat and malting barley are still in short supply, and appropriate imports are needed to make up for the domestic shortage. The purpose of importing some Thai spaghetti and spaghetti is not only to meet the diversified needs of domestic consumers, but also to meet the consumption habits of 30 million foreigners who come to invest, travel and work in China every year.