Domestic grain can no longer be sold. Why import corn?

The last issue on national food security mentioned that China's grain has increased for 11 years in a row. Although there is a structural shortage, there is an overall surplus of grain production in China, and it is an indisputable fact that there is a great pressure of destocking. In the major grain producing areas, cheap grain hurts farmers and grain cannot be sold. However, in this situation, China is a net importer of corn, and the broad masses of people find it unthinkable.

In fact, the reason for this situation is that, first, there has been an oversupply of corn in China, and the corn produced in China can no longer be completely digested by itself, so there is pressure to go to stock; second, the CIF price of imported corn has a price advantage for local corn, and grain enterprises will choose imported corn for cost reasons. Third, the development of corn downstream industry is not enough, and some enterprises are controlled by foreign capital, which leads to insufficient digestion of corn.

Let's talk about the yield of corn first. according to the grain sown area and grain output statistics released by the National Bureau of Statistics in 2015, corn is the largest food crop with the largest sown area and the highest total output in China, which has completely exceeded that of rice. In 2015, China sowed 38.117 million hectares of corn, with a total output of 224.58 million tons, accounting for 36.14% of the national grain output. On March 28, 2016, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Finance, the State Grain Administration and other departments held a media briefing and officially announced that in 2016, three provinces and one region in Northeast China would abolish the temporary corn collection and storage policy and adjust it to a new mechanism of "market-oriented acquisition" and "subsidy". That is, it indicates that China's grain has entered the era of destocking.

The second is that imported corn has a price advantage over local corn, and grain enterprises are more willing to choose imported corn. As we all know, in order to improve the enthusiasm of farmers to grow grain and protect the efficiency of growing grain, the state has been raising the temporary purchase price of corn. However, the international corn price has declined in the past two years, resulting in domestic corn prices higher than foreign corn prices. Although corn prices have declined since last year, the current CIF customs value of imported corn is 1666 yuan / ton, while the average domestic corn price is 1841 yuan / ton.

The third is that the development of corn downstream industry lags behind and the demand is not enough, which leads to corn overproduction. Corn deep processing begins with starch, and some by-products such as germ oil, protein powder, etc., and then corn starch begins further processing. However, the deep processing of corn in China due to the support of the market and the backwardness of policy formulation (the current policies of deep processing are all based on the national conditions and supply and demand of many years ago) have led to a serious shortage of production capacity of enterprises, and the operating rate of corn deep processing capacity in Northeast China is only 50%. Then there is a great change in the demand for meat products due to fluctuations in the price of meat products.

The above reasons lead to the fact that China's corn is now in a situation of overcapacity, so many people say that there is so much grain.

First of all, it is basically impossible for China to export corn, because, as mentioned above, local corn has no price competitive advantage over imported corn. Then why does the country still import corn? this raises the question of corn import quota. In fact, the corn import quota itself is to reduce the amount of corn imports, because grain enterprises need to apply in advance for the amount of corn imports, and the state can control the amount of corn imports. The domestic corn price is high and the corn quality is generally low, which can not meet the demand of some grain enterprises for high-standard corn is the main reason for corn import. So how much corn has our country imported? China's corn import quota in 2016 is 7.2 million tons, while combined with corn collection, storage and auction in previous years, the current domestic corn reserves is about 270 million tons, by comparison, the import volume is really negligible.

In fact, the state has made great efforts to ensure the development of the corn industry so as not to become the next soybean industry.