Can "insurance + futures" solve the problem of farmers'"relying on heaven's income"?

With the continuous improvement of the level of agricultural modernization in China, agricultural products continue to have a bumper harvest. However, the situation of farmers'"harvesting from heaven" has not been improved for a long time. If there is a bumper harvest, there may be "cheap grain hurting the farmers"; if it is affected, or "no grain harvest".

How to change this situation? With the rapid growth of China's financial market, the financial industry is working together to create innovative financial services of "insurance + futures". At present, it has been tried out in many fields of agricultural products, and some progress has been made in ensuring farmers' income.

In a year of falling prices and high yields, "cheap grain hurts farmers"

Grain prices at home and abroad have been hanging upside down for a long time, and imported grain continues to impact the domestic market. in the long run, relying on the state price subsidy not only makes the market law can not operate normally, but also causes the comprehensive competitiveness of China's agriculture can not be effectively improved.

For example, corn, after China began to implement temporary corn collection and storage in 2008, corn collection and storage prices continued to rise, corn production has been bumper year after year, by the end of 2015, China's corn reserves have reached the total corn output of one year. In 2016, the state abolished the corn temporary storage policy, and after corn returned to market pricing, the price fell rapidly from 2000 yuan in 2015 to around 1400 yuan at one point. The CIF price of imported corn is only about 1500 yuan.

How to solve the game relationship between production and price after market pricing is not only related to the stability of farmers' income, but also to the maintenance of agricultural sustainable reproduction and agricultural production safety in China.

"Insurance + Futures" helps Farmers avoid Price risk

In the past few years, with the rapid development of China's futures market, its function in price risk management has been recognized by the majority of industrial enterprises and widely used. However, how to apply this management tool to the field of agriculture, in the context of market-oriented pricing of agricultural products, to help farmers avoid price risk, has become a topic of concern in the industry.

For farmers, futures are too professional to understand. Sun Dachuan, a professional cooperative of machinery planting in Dachuan, Yushu City, Jilin Province, said bluntly that it is easier to accept agricultural insurance.

A relevant person in charge of the Dalian Commodity Exchange pointed out that "Insurance + Futures" combines the strengths of the insurance and futures industries and is in line with the characteristics of China's agricultural production. "Farmers focus on production and financial innovation services focus on dealing with risks." the two combine to deal with agricultural risks. "

Steadily expand the pilot project to build a new barrier for agricultural safety

Since the beginning of this year, the CSRC, in conjunction with the Ministry of Agriculture and the CIRC, has steadily expanded the "insurance + futures" pilot project on the basis of previous exploration. Dalian Commodity Exchange uses corn and soybeans as pilot varieties and supports 12 pilot projects, requiring that the spot volume of each corn pilot project is not less than 15000 tons, and that of each soybean pilot project is not less than 10, 000 tons, which is five times that of 2015. At the same time, Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange also launched a pilot project of "insurance + futures", selected cotton and white sugar as pilot varieties, and identified 10 pilot projects, covering eight provinces.

Qu Dongyu, vice minister of the Ministry of Agriculture, said that the relevant departments of the Ministry of Agriculture, together with the agricultural departments of the pilot areas, should take the initiative to dock with relevant departments and units of the CSRC and the CIRC, jointly study and improve the pilot operation methods, and put forward suggestions for improving policies. In addition, relevant departments and units should seriously study the "order agriculture + over-the-counter options + futures market" model explored by the Dalian Commodity Exchange. If it is operable and the risk is controllable, it can be promoted in the next "insurance + futures" pilot project.