Grain network to safeguard supplies
(China Daily)
Updated: 2004-06-05 00:04

China will improve its national and provincial grain reserve systems to ensure the nation's food security.

Han Jun, an agricultural expert at the State Council Research Centre, said the aim of establishing grain reserves is to keep them at a rational level in order to guarantee a balance between supply and demand.

The nation's grain production has slumped by 15 per cent over the past six years, from 512.3 million tons in 1998 to 430 million tons last year.

And fluctuating prices on the international grain market have made matters even worse in the second half of last year, sparking domestic and international concern over the nation's food security.

Han said an important step towards ensuring the nation has enough grain is to break up the State-owned grain trading monopoly.

He added that private enterprises should receive equal treatment when they try to enter the grain reserve sector, but only once their qualifications have been verified, Fan Xinhong, an official at the National Development and Reform Commission, stressed the value of a comprehensive investigation and reporting system covering the nation's grain reserves. This could help the central government exercise overall control over the nation's grain market.

"With the intensification of the market reform of the nation's grain circulation system and the multitude of grain businesses, the central government should ask grain trading enterprises to report their own grain reserves at given intervals and make it a prerequisite for market access that certain reserves are maintained," he said.

Investigations into rural and township reserves should also be highlighted, Fan added.

State Grain Administration Vice-Director Zhang Guifeng said the two emergency programmes which the organization launched in September to increase its regulation of the nation's grain market had been a success.

"The domestic grain market has been stabilized and grain prices are approaching a proper level," Zhang said.

Zhang also called for effective measures to reduce the post-harvest losses of grain to increase the nation's effective reserves.

She made the call at the recent launch ceremony of a scientific project on grain production in Beijing.

While decreasing post-production losses in rural reserves, State grain trading enterprises will also intensify their efforts to maintain the quality of the central grain reserves, Zhang said.

Post-harvest losses of grain amount to 18.2 per cent, according to a survey conducted in 547 counties in 24 provinces by the China Agricultural University.

That means 85 million tons of grain will be wasted annually during storage, transportation, trading and consumption, said Jin Chuxun, a chief expert on grain storage technology at the State grain authority.

More than 15 million tons could be saved every year if the grain storage, processing and transportation equipment can be improved to reduce the loss rate by 5 per cent.

China Grain Reserve Management Corp, a State-owned enterprise under the State Grain Administration, has promoted a new grain storage system among grain reserve agencies across the country.

The system, developed by the Shanxi Qinpeng Science and Technology Co Ltd, help kill harmful bacteria and prevent the grain from going mouldy without causing pollution.

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