Deepening market reform to prop up the confidence of grain farmers

October is the harvest time in golden autumn. The hard-working farmers across the country are enjoying the joy of a bumper harvest, but some farmers are worried about the current drop in grain prices.

With the continuous development of grain market-oriented reform, the positive effects such as the improvement of agricultural planting structure have gradually appeared, at the same time, the reform has also entered a painful period. How to protect farmers' enthusiasm for planting and do everything possible to support farmers' confidence in growing grain, so as to ensure national food security, has become an issue of concern to the whole society.

Bian Shujun, a big grain grower in Ping'an Village, Changting Town, Hailin City, Heilongjiang Province, is very representative among farmers in Northeast China. The bumper harvest of corn this year did not bring him the joy he deserved. Bian Shujun said that his family planted 180 mu of corn this year, including 115 mu of leased land and a contract fee of 300 yuan per mu. This year, the yield of wet grain per mu of corn is about 1300 jin, and the price of wet corn has dropped to about 0.45 yuan per jin. He estimated that after deducting the costs of seeds, pesticides, chemical fertilizers, labor and land rent, he basically made no money this year.

Xi Yinsheng, director of the Macro Department of the Agricultural Research Center of the Ministry of Agriculture, said in an interview with reporters that the decline in grain prices is the result of a combination of factors. After the "twelve consecutive increases" of grain in our country, the output of corn, wheat and rice exceeds the demand for many years, and the market price is low, which affects the income of farmers growing grain. In recent years, the state has begun to gradually reform the grain collection and storage system, changing the practice of continuously raising grain prices for many years. While stabilizing or lowering the minimum purchase prices of wheat and rice, the temporary storage policy of corn has been abolished and market-oriented purchase has been carried out. It is inevitable that corn prices will fall.

According to the estimation of public data, China's corn inventory is close to half of the total grain inventory, and corn destocking is facing severe pressure. The 2016 "Central Committee No. 1" document proposes to promote the supply-side structural reform of agriculture. This year, the three northeastern provinces and Inner Mongolia Autonomous region cancelled the eight-year-old temporary corn collection and storage policy and adjusted it to a new mechanism of "market-oriented acquisition" and "subsidy", which is considered to be one of the signs of the official launch of China's agricultural supply-side reform.

Experts said that the adjustment of the corn temporary storage policy to a new mechanism of "market pricing and price compensation separation" will help guide farmers to adjust their planting structure and plant cash crops with better returns. For a long time, the imbalance of agricultural planting structure in China is gradually improving. The corn acreage is expected to be reduced by more than 30 million mu this year, which will help to reduce the corn production capacity with serious oversupply.

At present, some farmers have enhanced their awareness of the market and started to take action. Zhao Sanxian, a large grain grower in Chengmiao Village, Yuanqiang Town, Taihe County, Anhui Province, due to the drop in grain prices, considered adjusting the existing planting structure, he decided to reduce the grain planting area next year and set aside part of the land to plant Chinese herbal medicines with better economic benefits. Different from the fact that grain prices forced Zhao Sanxian to adjust his planting structure, Guijia Village, Huancheng City, Yushu City, Jilin Province, increased the possession of Ma, chairman of the agricultural planting professional cooperative, and began to take the initiative to adjust the planting structure as early as 2014. planting high-quality corn varieties such as Belgian corn and high-protein corn, as well as higher-yielding cash crops such as evening primrose, potatoes and watermelons, develop order agriculture and produce products that do not worry about selling at all. The net income of the more than 500 hectares of land operated by the cooperative this year has reached more than 2 million yuan, which is basically unaffected by the drop in grain prices.

Lan Haitao, a researcher at the Institute of Industrial economy and Technology economy of the National Development and Reform Commission, said that the adjustment of agricultural structure must respect objective economic laws. In the process of the new round of agricultural restructuring, measures must be taken to prevent the negative effects brought about by the excessive reduction of grain area and the ups and downs of output.

At present, the environment of China's agricultural development is undergoing profound changes, with the continuous accumulation of old problems and the emergence of new contradictions, facing many difficulties and challenges. The reporter learned in the interview that at present, the problem that farmers' enthusiasm for growing grain has been frustrated as a result of the drop in grain prices has received great attention from all sides. Su Jieming, manager of the operation and management department of Jilin Agricultural Chuangchuang Investment Group Co., Ltd., said in an interview with reporters that more measures should be taken to help farmers tide over the immediate difficulties, especially to increase subsidies to support the confidence of grain farmers. This year, the state finance has distributed 30 billion yuan in subsidies to the first batch of corn producers in the three northeastern provinces and Inner Mongolia, about 150 yuan per mu. At present, the key is to really implement the subsidy policy, especially to implement the relevant provisions of grain price difference subsidies directly supplied to corn producers, so that farmers can really benefit from it. In short, more measures must be taken to protect farmers' enthusiasm for planting in order to ensure national food security.