Why is it difficult to buy grain in major grain-producing provinces?

As the most important wheat producing area in the country, Henan Province had a total wheat output of 69.32 billion jin in 2016, with another bumper harvest. Prior to this, wheat in Henan Province has increased production for 13 consecutive years. However, the reporter learned during the interview that although there has been a bumper wheat harvest year after year and it is difficult to sell grain in some places, many processing enterprises said that it is difficult to buy wheat that meets the requirements.

On the one hand, there is a bumper harvest of wheat in successive years, and it is difficult for farmers to sell, on the other hand, it is difficult for processing enterprises to buy grain. As a major grain-producing province, how should Henan solve the embarrassing situation of the coexistence of "dilemmas"?

"it is difficult to sell grain in the main grain producing areas."

Autumn grain has been harvested. At the home of Wang Shoujun, a villager of Sunzhuang Village, Linying County, Tahe City, Henan Province, more than 4 mu of wheat is still in woven bags and has not been sold. "in previous years, when we harvested wheat, we sold it at the same time. This year, the quality of wheat is not good, and the price is also low. In previous years, we could sell it for more than one yuan and ten cents a jin, but this year no one collected one yuan or a few cents per jin." Wang Shoujun said.

Growing grain does not have to worry about selling grain, and for the big grain growers who contract thousands of mu of land, the pressure is even greater. Tang Daoli, a major grain grower in Shiqi County, Nanyang City, contracted nearly 3000 mu of land. last year, due to poor wheat quality and imperfect grains exceeding the standard, he lost more than 100,000 yuan. He did not expect that it would be difficult to sell grain again this year. When the reporter interviewed, Tang Daoli only sold less than 1/3 of wheat, millions of jin of wheat accumulated in the granary, sprouting and mildew every day, Tang Daoli was very anxious. "it is difficult to sell a bumper harvest year after year, and if it goes on like this, the big grain growers will not be able to work any longer." Tang Daoli said.

The reporter learned from the Henan Branch of Grain Storage that in order to alleviate the difficulty for farmers to sell grain, Henan Province has set up 1676 purchase depots this year, an increase of 242 over last year. By the end of September, a total of 12.14 billion kilograms of wheat had been purchased, the largest purchase since 2010.

Shen Hongyuan, an analyst at Zhengzhou Grain Wholesale Market, believes that the difficulty in selling wheat in some parts of Henan this year is ostensibly due to the low quality of wheat this year, and the fundamental reason is the asymmetry between wheat planting structure and market demand. "the wheat planted is not needed by flour processing enterprises, and wheat sales can only rely on the acquisition of the state to support the market. Once the quality is not up to standard, it will naturally be difficult to sell in a large area." Shen Hongyuan said.

"guarding the granary for wheat shortage" demand for imported wheat continues to rise

In the warehouse compound of Henan Luohe Stone Mill Noodle Co., Ltd., there is a long queue of large trucks delivering wheat, which the company has just bought from Shandong. "there is a serious shortage of wheat this year. I just took a trip to Shandong and Hebei, and ordered 40,000 tons, but it's still a long way off." Xue Wangzhi, deputy general manager of Stone Mill Noodle Company, said.

Luohe Stone Mill Noodle Co., Ltd. is a medium-sized flour processing enterprise with an annual processing of about 150000 tons of wheat. The head of the company frankly said that the cost and quality of raw materials are the biggest problems faced by enterprises in recent years. "the wheat yield in Henan Province and even the whole country is increasing year after year, but most of them are medium gluten wheat, which is different from our demand. In particular, in the past two years, wheat is not perfect and the grain is high, and the quality of wheat is simply not up to the standard of our processing. Farmers are anxious to sell grain, and we are also worried about grain shortage. " Xue Wangzhi said.

According to Xue Wangzhi, due to the poor quality of domestic wheat, they have stepped up the use of imported wheat in recent years. However, limited by the import quota of wheat, the company imports only more than 1000 tons of wheat every year, which is far from being able to meet the needs. Xue Wangzhi said: imported wheat is of good quality and its price is lower than that of domestic wheat. If it were not for quota restrictions, we would certainly use all imported wheat.

Suiping County is not only an advanced county of grain production and commercial grain production base county, but also a national high-quality wheat standardization demonstration area. However, Liu Qiuyan, director of Henan Yijiayi Natural flour Co., Ltd., which is located in Suiping County, said that although their company's Suiping County has an annual wheat planting area of 840000 mu, they still often worry about qualified raw materials.

Liu Qiuyan said that most of the local wheat is planted separately, and the quality of the wheat produced may be different in the same variety and year. In order to ensure the quality of flour, the company had to buy imported wheat at a high price from traders.

Yongcheng is not only a big market of wheat production, but also a big market of flour processing, with an annual production capacity of more than 1.5 million tons, known as "China flour City". However, such a flour city, which is flourishing because of wheat, is no longer dependent on domestic wheat.

According to Xiao Yongcheng, deputy general manager of Zhengzhou Grain Wholesale Market, customs statistics show that China imported 1.77535 million tons of wheat in the first half of 2016, an increase of 27.3 percent over the same period last year. As the largest province in wheat output, Henan imported nearly 40,000 tons of wheat in the first half of this year. "the high cost and low quality of domestic wheat not only lead to the price upside down, but also difficult to meet the needs of flour processing enterprises, resulting in a strange phenomenon of simultaneous increase in wheat output, import and inventory." Xiao Yongcheng said.

It is urgent to speed up the supply-side reform to solve the phenomenon of "dilemma".

On the one hand, there is a bumper harvest in successive years, the stock of wheat is increasing, and farmers suffer from the trouble that they can not sell it; on the other hand, there is a shortage of raw materials in flour processing enterprises and a large influx of imported wheat. In this regard, relevant experts said that in order to solve the embarrassment of the coexistence of "dilemmas" and the simultaneous increase of "three quantities" in the wheat market, there is an urgent need to speed up the supply-side reform of wheat cultivation.

Zheng Fengtian, deputy dean of the School of Agriculture and Rural Development at Renmin University of China, believes that China's persistently high wheat imports directly reflect that the current wheat planting structure is unreasonable and the supply of high-quality wheat is insufficient. Zheng Fengtian said: although the total output of wheat has reached new highs in recent years, the output of high-quality wheat is insufficient, especially there is a large shortage of wheat raw materials used to meet the emerging pasta industries such as bread and cakes, and it is still unable to meet the rapidly growing needs of the food processing industry and consumers, and there is still huge room for improvement in variety, quality, and brands.

Liu Zhengmin, an analyst at Zhengzhou Grain Wholesale Market, believes that the current wheat supply and marketing system of "household planting-intermediary acquisition-national reserve" is suitable for the needs of general pasta, but the structural adjustment of strong and weak gluten wheat fails. "High quality is not necessarily a good price, and the yield of high-quality wheat is relatively unstable and the market risk is high, which makes farmers and even large grain growers unwilling to take risks to adjust their structure."