Increase in price for grain production does not offset rising costs

Increased production, high food prices, and several hundred yuan per mu increase. On November 18th, Hubei Hongsen Grain and Oil Group's grain purchasing point posted a noticeable red notice at the entrance, detailing the purchase price of rice of different grades and varieties. Many large and medium sized trucks loaded with food are lined up at the entrance, and a brand new small tractor is placed in the middle, with a sack of food placed neatly on it. Hong Chuanlin, chairman of the Hun Sen Group, said: "The use of carts to send grain are all brokers and cooperatives. Individuals who come to the small carts are retail investors. Now that individual farmers come to sell their food, they mostly pass through brokers to save themselves and save money."

The owner of the small tractor is an old couple from Luochi Village. "Your family planted several acres of land. How about this year's output?"

"There are more than ten acres of rice, harvested this year, hit 20,000 pounds, and the price has gone up, a pound 1.39 yuan, more than 8,000 yuan more than last year's income." Cheng Changping old man said with joy.

After deducting the costs of seed, fertilizer, etc., is it still worthwhile to grow grain? Song Huashan, a large grain farmer in Penghe Village, Lishi Town, affirmed: “Although the prices of seeds and fertilizers have risen this year, the deduction of various costs will increase the income per hectare by several hundred yuan.” The farm contracted 200 acres of land and planted all rice. After all, this year it will increase income by about 80,000 yuan.

Xiao Deyin, chairman of the Delida Food Specialist Cooperative Council, said: “The key to good grain yields is the high price of grain. Thanks to the good policy! The price of grain has fallen all the way before the country’s mid-late rice minimum purchase price came out. The minimum purchase price As soon as the major grain companies immediately competed for price increases, the purchase price is now generally around four, up by two cents from last year!

With the increase in the purchase price of grain, in addition to the market impact, improved varieties are also important factors. According to the person in charge of the Shayang County Bureau of Agriculture, in recent years, the agricultural sector has vigorously promoted new food varieties and new technologies. At present, the coverage rate of fine varieties of grain crops in the county has reached more than 95%, and the average yield is 552.4 kg/mu. Good rice out of good rice, good rice price higher. Xiao Deyin said that although the price of seeds has increased from RMB 25/kg to RMB 30/kg last year, this year's seeds are better than last year, and the prices of rice planted are higher, so this investment is also worthwhile.

There are many main grain purchasers, and the acquisition funds are sufficient. As of November 16, the Hubei Branch of the Agricultural Development Bank of China has placed a purchase loan of 4.36 billion yuan to support the purchase of 3.69 billion kilograms of grain by enterprises. The county's 8 grain processing leading enterprises have an annual processing capacity of 1 million tons of rice, which exceeds the county's total grain output. Only this year, Hun Sen Grain & Oil Group obtained 50 million yuan from the Agricultural Bank of Hubei Branch to purchase food loans. By mid-November, It has acquired 160,000 tons of rice.

According to statistics from the Bureau of Agriculture of Shayang County, compared with 2010, the per capita income of peasants increased by 769 yuan this year.

The cost of drought is high, and the agricultural resources are rising fast. We hope that the cost of grain will be reduced. Although the income from growing grain will increase, the dramatic increase in prices of diesel oil and fertilizer will cause farmers to feel pressure.

Zengji Zhangjiagang farmer Chang Guiyin said: “Now farmers in the Jianghan Plain generally adopt machine plugs and machine harvests, but the more they reach the peak of grain harvest, the more they can’t buy diesel, it’s not enough. We can only find The oil merchants bought high-priced oil. This year's peak diesel oil sold at 7.6 yuan per liter, and it peaked before it fell."

According to a survey conducted by the Hubei Provincial Office of Agriculture, the general increase in the price of agricultural materials this year has led to a significant increase in agricultural production costs. September monitoring data showed that: urea was 2.5 yuan/kg, up 34.6% from the same period of last year; ammonium bicarbonate was 0.8 yuan/kg, up 26.2%; potassium chloride was up 9.4%; average price increase of medium indica rice, cotton, and wheat reached 21.1. %; Agricultural diesel prices rose by nearly 10%.

In order to control costs, the Delida Cooperative has made contact with some seed and fertilizer manufacturers. The available answers are: “Contact our dealers in Shayang, and buy more than 300,000 mu of farmland. Otherwise, we cannot offer them preferentially.” Xiao Deyin said: “Our cooperatives only cover more than 600 farmers and 1.1 million mu. Farmland cannot meet his requirements."

“Since there can be a minimum purchase price for grain, can we limit the maximum selling price of agricultural materials? Can we suppress the price increase of agricultural capital? Can we imitate 'agricultural super matchmaking?' and allow agricultural production companies to directly link with agricultural specialized cooperatives and reduce intermediate links? , to reduce the cost of grain production?" Some large grains are recommended.

Not only agricultural prices have risen, but this year's drought has also caused farmers to increase grain costs. "In order to resist drought and pumping water, the electricity bill has cost more than 5,000 yuan, which is about twice as much as last year." Chang Guiyin said. He contracted 60 acres of land. When the drought came, he could only rely on a pumping well. However, due to the low voltage of the agricultural power supply, the power supply was intermittent and he gave him an emergency.

Even worse than him is the peasant Wan Zhifa of the Hongshan Village in Maoli Town. His brothers collectively contracted nearly 600 mu of land from the village. However, due to drought and flooding, the Xijing River embankment along the paddy field was washed away by flood water. Without going out, the 400-acre rice grain is not harvested, and only 200 acres have a normal harvest. “After all this year, 200,000 yuan was spent on grain production, and 245 million yuan was sold on 200 acres of land. Although there was no loss, it was only a guarantee. In the following year, he had to invest 120,000 yuan to repair the embankment. "In the past two to three years, I have invested 20,000 to 30,000 yuan to build water conservancy facilities. However, relying on the power of our farmers is far from enough."

According to statistics from the Bureau of Agriculture of Shayang County, during the “Eleventh Five-Year Plan” period, the county invested a total of 1.022 billion yuan in projects such as comprehensive agricultural development, land consolidation, consolidation of small and medium-sized reservoirs, and small farms, etc., to build water conservancy projects, transform low-yield fields, and build high- Standard farmland. At present, the county has an effective area of ​​910,000 mu of irrigated grain, 72 million mu of land for drought and flood protection, and 580,000 mu of high-yield farmland.

Despite the continuous increase in construction efforts, the "last mile" problem of water conservancy facilities is still relatively common. The construction of "end-of-pipe" water conservancy facilities is still lagging behind. It is difficult to complete the investment by farmers alone. Moreover, even if there are many small-scale water conservancy facilities, they will “fall off the chain at a critical moment” due to droughts and floods.

Official Town Publicity Committee Yang Junhua said: “The current level of peasant organization is not high enough. Farmers alone, and their ability to resist disasters and resist market risks are weak. We hope that the state will further increase the construction of supporting facilities for high-yield food bases and establish unified planning for utilities. According to the grain area, subsidies are provided for the construction, management, maintenance, and utilities of terminal water conservancy facilities such as pumping stations."

Large-scale grain production is a trend, and land circulation should insist that farmers are willing to adopt large-scale cultivation both from the perspective of disaster resistance and market risk prevention, or from the perspective of increasing grain yields.

“With the aging of the farmers, scattered land is not concentrated, and I am afraid that there will not be so many farmers who can plant land afterwards.” Xiao Deyin said: “Now after '70', there is very little grain growing, and after '80’s, almost no farming is done. All of them go out to work, and most of them will not come back to farming in the future. They can only give the land to cooperatives or leading enterprises in agricultural industrialization."

In the Hun Sen Group, the reporter saw Lu Chih-hua, a “post-70” peasant. He said that he had worked at Baotou construction site in the past few years and had a good income. At the end of the year when the farmers were busy, they came back to help their parents sell their food. “The individual farmers can't earn any money, 9 acres of land a year, and they can only spend 5,000 yuan on cost and food expenses. They will not be allowed to plant their parents next year. They will take them to Baotou to provide for the elderly.”

Upon hearing this, Hong Chuanlin said, "Take the earth to me! The state subsidizes an acre of 156 yuan and gives it back to you. I will give you another rent of 1,000 yuan per mu." Actually, In recent years, the Hun Sen Group has transferred about 5000 mu of farmland from Shayang farmers. “The benefits of large-scale grain growing are much higher than those of farmers. Because they can control improved varieties and techniques, they can increase efficiency through mechanized planting. As long as there are many lands and good management, it is very profitable,” said Hong Chuanlin, “but farmers”. The concept of "supporting the elderly" is still relatively strong. Many people are reluctant to transfer land to the company."

In this case, the Hun Sen Group's high-quality food sources mainly rely on "order agriculture." Zhao Yueqing, the farmer, is the Hun Sen Group's order farmer. He said: “This year, the price of seeds has gone up. We can rely on the designated breeds provided by the group free of charge, save a lot of costs, and at the same time buy rice at high prices. It is really a one-stop service.”

"Order agriculture" is a great advantage for farmers, but it is not without risks for Hun Sen Group. "The agreement now mainly restricts enterprises. When farmers sell their grain, whoever sells the goods to them will be sold to whom. The agreement has no guarantee for the enterprise. Land circulation is good," said Hong Chuanlin.

Regarding the notion of "reluctability" of the peasants, Yang Gangqiao, a professor at the Huazhong Agricultural University's School of Land Management, believes that land transfer must be based on farmers' willingness. To allow farmers to “voluntarily”, they must ensure that their land revenue does not decrease. “It is also necessary to relieve the worries of farmers, such as the improvement of the urban social security system as soon as possible, the acceptance of the integration of young and middle-aged rural migrant workers into the cities, and the improvement of the old-age pension and medical security of the farmers,” said Dai Jiahua, deputy mayor of Pickup Town.

Agricultural cooperatives have no money to rent. Xiao Deyin said: “As cooperatives have to be big, they also need to focus on transferring land. When negotiating with farmers, many farmers propose not to rent for one year and simply pay off the land for more than 10 years. How can the cooperative have so much money? It is also not possible to find a bank loan, because there is no property in the cooperative that can give the bank a mortgage, and the only land use rights cannot be used as collateral."

Yang Gangqiao pointed out that the state should introduce supportive policies, and the main parties, such as cooperatives and leading enterprises interested in moderately large-scale planting, can be given funds and project inclinations, which can reduce planting costs, increase the efficiency of the use of water conservancy infrastructure, and promote mechanized cultivation. Modern agricultural development