China News Service, April 9 (Xinhua)-Recently, the State Council's New Coronary Pneumonia Outbreak Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism specifically held a press conference on food supply and security issues. At the meeting, the relevant person in charge of the national agricultural, rural and grain reserve departments used detailed data to dispel people's doubts: China has sufficient grain reserves, and its processing, storage and transportation capacity is guaranteed. This year's grain planting situation is also in line with expectations, and China will not appear. Food shortage.
Sufficient grain stocks and harvest are expected to not be short of grain
According to authoritative data, at present, China's two major staple grains of rice and wheat can fully achieve self-sufficiency. The grain self-sufficiency rate exceeds 95%, and the degree of dependence on imports is relatively low.
In 2019, China's rice production was 209.6 million tons, and its food consumption was 158 million tons, a year-on-year decrease of 500,000 tons. Despite the increase in rice forage and industrial grain, the annual balance is expected to be 14.3 million tons. .
In 2019, China's wheat output was 134 million tons, the second highest level in history, and it has remained above 130 million tons for five consecutive years. Due to the upgrading of the consumption structure, the consumption of flour has declined, and the domestic consumption of food has been generally stable, but feed and industrial consumption have declined. The National Grain and Oil Information Center estimates wheat consumption of 123.5 million tons, a year-on-year decrease of 5.32 million tons, and an annual balance of 14 million tons, an increase of the same period. 8.7 million tons, which has exceeded the demand for 7 consecutive years.
According to data released by the Ministry of Commerce, China's wheat, corn, and rice staple food stock balances of more than 280 million tons in 2019 are fully self-sufficient, and the lack of imports will not cause a shortage of domestic staple food varieties.
In recent years, China ’s grain production has been bumper year after year, with abundant inventories, sufficient reserves, and long-term stable prices. The international market has little impact on China ’s grain supply.
In addition, relevant information from the Ministry of Agriculture shows that the overall grain production situation is improving in 2020, and summer grain seedlings are growing better than normal, and harvests are in sight; the area of early rice cultivation is expanding, and there is a basis for increasing production. During the epidemic, the country continued to introduce policies and measures to support agricultural production. This year's grain harvest is a high probability event.
The inventory is sufficient, the production conditions are good, and the government has the full deployment capacity to meet the domestic market supply and ensure the stability of domestic food prices.
In fact, as mentioned in the white paper "China's Food Security" issued by the relevant state departments in October 2019, China has basically solved the food security problem, and has achieved a change from "not enough" to "full", and The historic shift of "eating well".
Enterprise grain and oil stocks quickly ensure market supply
On the whole, China is not short of grain, and it can ensure that its citizens "eat well." But when a major emergency such as the new coronary pneumonia epidemic occurs, how to ensure the emergency supply of food is also a major issue. We see that when major emergencies occur, people may hoard food because of panic, which is a huge challenge to market supply capacity.
Regarding the emergency supply of grain, the White Paper on Food Security pointed out that China's grain reserve and emergency system are gradually improving. The government has sufficient grain reserves, good quality and safe storage. In large and medium-sized cities and areas with volatile prices, 10-15 days of emergency finished grain reserves have been established. At the press conference recently, according to the relevant person in charge of the grain reserve department, China ’s government grain reserves are divided into central reserve grains and local reserve grains. In this epidemic, most of the areas except for individual cities and counties have not used local The grain reserves and the central grain reserves remain untouched.
In addition to government grain reserves and policy stocks, grain and oil companies' stocks are also an important part of grain stocks.
In this war epidemic, grain stocks of grain and oil companies played an important role in quickly ensuring market supply. Take Yihai Kerry, a large domestic grain and oil enterprise group, as an example. Its factories and distributors all over the country have stored certain raw materials and finished grains and oils before the Spring Festival. In the early stage of the epidemic, there was a phenomenon of people rushing to buy grains and oils. Yihai Kerry responded quickly and issued a proposal to the dealers to stabilize the supply of grains, put the stocked grains and oils on the market to ensure market supply and stabilize grains and oils prices. Subsequently, Yihai Kerry overcame many difficulties, quickly resumed production and resumed production, and continuously processed the raw materials in stock into finished grain and oil to ensure the subsequent supply of the market.
It is precisely because of the advantages of raw materials and finished grain and oil reserves, in this epidemic, Yihai Kerry's enterprises can resume production as soon as possible, and try their best to meet the needs of grain and oil everywhere. As of March 31, Yihai Kerry had provided a total of 208,620 tons of rice, 96,110 tons of noodles and 533,725 tons of oil to major provinces with severe epidemics, which played an important role in ensuring market supply and stabilizing grain and oil prices.
National distribution of grain enterprises to ensure emergency capabilities
In addition to reserves, grain processing, storage and transportation capacity is also an important indicator of emergency capacity. The grain white paper pointed out that a number of emergency processing enterprises, emergency supply outlets, emergency distribution centers and emergency storage and transportation enterprises have been constructed and constructed in China. According to the relevant person in charge at the press conference of the joint epidemic prevention and control mechanism held on April 4, there are currently 44,601 food emergency supply outlets, 5,388 emergency processing enterprises, 3,170 emergency distribution centers, and 3,454 emergency storage and transportation enterprises. .
In fact, when the grain and oil enterprises are carrying out the industrial layout of the processing plants, it is also an important factor to take into consideration in conjunction with the national grain emergency capacity building. Taking Yihai Kerry as an example, it has built more than 70 production bases and under construction in 26 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities across the country, and more than 100 production-oriented entities, of which more than 60 grain and oil processing enterprises have been designated as key points by governments at all levels. Life supplies guarantee enterprise. These enterprises quickly resumed production and production, which played an important role in ensuring the local supply of grain and oil.
In this epidemic, Hubei and Wuhan are the hardest hit areas. In order to support Hubei and Wuhan against the epidemic, Yihai Kerry actively took advantage of the synergy of the group's supply chain, and grain and oil companies in Hubei and surrounding provinces also provided strong support. Yihai Kerry Heilongjiang Jiamusi and Harbin factories produce emergency rice products urgently. Kunshan, Jiangsu, Zhengzhou, Henan, Xingping, Shaanxi, and Chengdu, Sichuan actively support flour and noodle products. In order to ensure the supply of feed materials in Hubei, Taizhou Cereals and Oils overcame many difficulties after resuming production on February 4, and quickly arranged to ship soybean meal to Hubei by water. Yihai Kerry (Wuhan) Cereals and Oils Industry Co., Ltd., which is in the main battlefield of the epidemic situation, overcame many difficulties and caused the rice processing plant to resume production in advance on February 4 to ensure the supply of grain and oil on the market and the front line of anti-epidemic. Yihai Kerry Wuhan Marketing Branch teamed up with local distributors to distribute grain and oil materials donated by the group to food and beverage terminals that provide caring boxes for medical institutions free of charge, protecting 16 local hospitals in Wuhan, including Thunder Mountain and Vulcan Mountain Hospital Catering logistics services.
"People take food as the sky." Grain and oil are the most important living materials. Especially when major emergencies occur, a stable grain and oil supply is essential to stabilize people's hearts. Among them, the role of grain and oil companies is indispensable.
The White Paper on "China's Food Security" pointed out that in the future, we will continue to strengthen the management of food reserves, improve the emergency food supply system, optimize the layout of food emergency supply, distribution, and processing outlets, and build a batch of standardized grain and oil distribution centers, grain and oil emergency processing enterprises and emergency Supply outlets form a food emergency supply guarantee system with reasonable layout, complete facilities, efficient operation and strong guarantee, strengthen the emergency handling function, and improve the level of emergency supply guarantee.
It is the unshirkable social responsibility of grain and oil companies to ensure emergency food supply during major emergencies. Guokong Feng, chairman of Yihai Kerry Group, has repeatedly stressed: "When the country encounters difficulties, we must do our best to cooperate at all costs." Whenever a sudden disaster occurs, Yihai Kerry can always breathe with the motherland. And share fate.
The epidemic will eventually pass, but the improvement of the emergency food supply system is not a one-time achievement. Yihai Kerry is firmly optimistic about the development prospects of the motherland, and will continue to cooperate with the construction of the national food emergency security supply system, improve the industrial layout across the country, and contribute to enhancing the national food emergency supply capacity.