In May 2022, Henan and other places set off a wave of harvesting immature wheat for silage. One mu of green wheat farmers can sell for 1,500 yuan, and in some places it can even be sold for 2,000 yuan per mu.
On April 24 this year, with the People's Government of Gaopu Town, Shunping County, Hebei Province, issuing the "Proposal on Strictly Prohibiting the Behavior of Cutting Green and Destroying Wheat", a new round of public opinion storm was set off.
Some people believe that food security is the foundation and that rations cannot be used as fodder at will;
Some people also think that wheat is grown by farmers, and as long as the price is right, it can be sold for feed. Furthermore, wheat is harvested for human consumption. Wheat feed is supplied to the farm, and when the livestock grows up, it is also for human consumption, isn't it essentially the same?
The expert said that I couldn't sell it no matter how much I was given, and the farmer said that I just wanted to make more money, what is the source of the contradiction between the two?
The use of wheat as silage threatens food security
In May 2022, harvesting immature wheat for silage mainly occurred in Henan and other places. One mu of green wheat farmers can sell for 1,500 yuan, and in some places it can even be sold for 2,000 yuan per mu.
Because of the right price, many farmers sold their unripe green wheat before the outside world paid attention to it. There are long queues of large trucks that go to the local area to pull feed.
After this incident was noticed by the media, it immediately attracted a huge controversy, and most people's first feeling was that harvesting wheat before it was ripe was a waste of food.
If this phenomenon is viewed on a larger scale, it may also threaten the food security of the country as a whole.
The Henan region, which harvests green wheat, is the main wheat producing area in China, and its annual output has exceeded 70 billion catties in 2021.
There is a view that the occurrence of such a thing in the main grain-producing areas will inevitably create a demonstration effect, which may then lead more farmers to sell their immature wheat.
If left unchecked, wheat production will inevitably be affected, which in turn will pose a threat to the country's overall food supply.
You must know that although the mainland's grain production is very high, due to the large population base, whether it is for food or for feed, the annual consumption is also very high.
Even corn, soybeans and other grains for feed supply are not enough, and large-scale imports are required every year to ensure supply.
Therefore, in this situation, wheat, which is mainly used for food, is used as feed on a large scale, which will inevitably threaten the supply of food rations.
Because of this, when the green wheat was harvested, the local agriculture department immediately issued a notice to control the phenomenon.
This is from the point of view of food supply, and the use of wheat as a ration rather than feed. From another point of view, harvesting green wheat is the actual situation of market supply and regulation.
Grain or feed, which has the highest income
Farmers sell green wheat as fodder, first of all, from the perspective of profit.
After ripening, the peasants left a part of the wheat for their own consumption, and the rest was boiled. The market price of wheat has remained at about 1 yuan per catty for many years, and it may reach 1.5 yuan when the price is high, and even fall below 1 yuan when the price is low.
According to the highest price of 1.5 yuan per catty, the income per mu of land does not reach 1,500 yuan. This is due to the general yield of wheat per mu, which is only about 800 catties to 1,000 catties.
The yield per mu in some areas exceeded 1,000 catties, but even so, the income remained below 1,500 yuan. After all, growing food also has a series of cost inputs such as fertilizer, watering, pesticides, harvesting, and management.
After removing various costs and expenses, the final net income per mu of wheat is generally less than 1,000 yuan. The minimum wage standard in the mainland is already higher than 1,000 yuan. It can be seen that growing grain is definitely a hard and unprofitable thing for today's farmers.
In this case, some buyers are willing to give 1,500 yuan to harvest wheat, and farmers do not have to harvest it themselves, and most of them are definitely willing to sell.
On the one hand, the yield per mu is higher than the yield of wheat after maturity. On the other hand, the wheat is harvested early, and the vacated land can be planted with the next crop of corn in advance.
Previously, some farmers said that if they sold their wheat earlier, they would be able to go to the city to work without having to wait at home to watch the wheat ripen.
All of the above shows that farmers sell their unripe wheat because the overall yield is higher.
Although it is possible to prevent buyers from going to the countryside to buy green wheat through the management level, this method will treat the symptoms but not the root cause, and in the long run, it will further discourage farmers from planting the land.
So, on the face of it, harvesting green wheat threatens food security. The deep-seated paradox is that even if this phenomenon is eradicated, the hidden danger of food security still exists.
Who will farm the land in the future
Farmers are willing to sell their unripe wheat because they think it will be more profitable. As for the younger farmers, they don't even want to plant the land.
Some of the post-80s and post-90s rural people have taken root in the city by receiving a university education, and some have been working in the city for a long time even if they have not received higher education, and have never considered returning to their hometown to farm.
Those who are still farming today are mainly the post-50s to post-60s groups. The post-50s generation is aging, and the youngest generation of post-50s is already 65 years old, and they are about to plant the land.
After this generation leaves, who will stay in the countryside to farm? This question is not only on the minds of the older generation of peasants, but also on the part of the state.
Taking Sichuan Province as an example, as of 2023, nearly 22% of Sichuan's rural permanent population will be elderly people over 65 years old. The young group has been working and working in the city all year round. The shortage of rural labor is imminent.
In some towns and villages in Renshou County, Sichuan, a large number of rice fields have been abandoned, and the old farmers are unable to plant, and the young ones have left the villages. The main reason why the latter left the countryside was that the income from farming was not high, or even non-profitable.
The structure of modern society has long changed, and industrialization, market economy orientation, and commodity circulation have become the main modes of social operation.
If people want to obtain higher income, or cross the original class, they can get urban work and life, which is the main tone of modern society, and it is also the main trend of modern people's career choice and flow.
Although food is also important, under the shaping of the market structure, its own value as the most upstream product has not increased like other commodities.
After all, if the price of food rises, the price of other commodities will inevitably rise, and the modern social system will cease to exist.
But the problem is that if the price of food cannot be set very high, and there will be fewer and fewer people who choose to farm when the returns are very low or even non-existent. If no one farms, the whole society will also have problems.
Farmers sell green wheat as fodder, which is also a concrete manifestation of this problem. As mentioned above, it is possible to discourage farmers from doing so through policy measures, but they cannot solve the reality that farmers and land returns are getting lower and lower.
If this contradiction is not resolved for a long time to come, the problem of food security will still exist. In addition, from the perspective of feed supply, the supply of meat and eggs accounts for an increasing proportion of the overall grain pattern.
In other words, the feed supply itself is also a link to ensure food security. The reason why green wheat was harvested for silage was because of problems in the supply area.
The main source of silage is corn
Let's start by explaining what silage is. This feed refers to chopped and fermented roughage with a moisture content of between 65 and 70 percent.
Compared to fresh feed, silage has less moisture content and is easier to store. Compared with dry feed, its nutritional value is relatively high. Therefore, in the field of aquaculture, the application scale of silage is also very large.
For a long time, the main raw material for silage was actually corn, in addition to agricultural crops such as ryegrass, alfalfa, milk vetch, etc.
In the case of corn, if it is used as silage alone, its final feed yield per mu can exceed 4 tons. If it is wheat, the yield per mu of feed is only more than 1 ton. In contrast, wheat is not as productive as corn as feed.
In May 2022, Henan's aquaculture enterprises purchased green wheat for feed, mainly because the floods in 2021 affected their feed stocks.
They ran out of fodder, and if they waited for the corn to be produced, they bought green wheat for emergency silage. In other words, the use of wheat for silage is not a common phenomenon in itself.
It is worth mentioning that although the mainland does not use immature wheat as silage, the harvested wheat includes rice, and some of it is processed and used as dry feed.
The supply and demand of wheat are more than balanced
According to the statistics of the Grain and Oil Information Center, from 2020 to 2021, 38 million tons of wheat were used for feed in China.
In the eyes of industry insiders, since the overall production of wheat is increasing and the food supply is guaranteed, it is logical that the excess part will be used as feed.
From the perspective of wheat consumption type, the edible part accounts for the largest proportion, with an annual consumption of about 90 million tons. The scale of industrial consumption is small, with an annual consumption of about 10 million tons.
And for feed use, consumption has been fluctuating for nearly 20 years. In the lower years, only 7 million tonnes were consumed, while in the higher years it was around 35 million tonnes.
The annual production of wheat on the mainland is between 125 million and 135 million tons. So on the whole, the balance between supply and demand can still be guaranteed.
Judging from the future trend, corn and other crops are the main source of feed, and wheat is mainly guaranteed to eat.
As production continues to increase, we will be able to supply our own production every year, rather than having to be compensated by large imports, as is the case with other crops.
epilogue
Although there is no imbalance between supply and demand, this result is based on the normal planting and harvesting of wheat. Once there is a fluctuation in annual production, the structure of supply and demand will change.
Because of this, the slight signs of harvesting green wheat have made all walks of life extremely nervous.
For farmers, their farming needs to be secured, and the lack of income will lead to abandonment. As far as the state is concerned, it is necessary to coordinate the income of farmers and ensure the supply of food security at the same time, and how to ensure this balance in the long term needs to be carefully considered.
But then again, a series of problems faced by agriculture in contemporary society are not unique to the mainland. The general trend in the future is that the agricultural population will be further reduced, and the industrialization of agriculture will be more efficient.
Because only in this way can the income of the group engaged in agriculture be guaranteed, and the grain output will not fluctuate greatly.
Resources:
"Wheat is harvested before it is ripe to make silage, and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs issued a notice to resolutely prohibit the destruction of wheat" The Paper May 12, 2022
"Entering the Super Aging Population, How to Crack the "Who Will Farm the Land"" Xinhua News Agency, January 10, 2023