Research On The Impact Of China's Grain Purchase Price Support Policy On Food Security

As the most basic survival material of human beings,the importance of food is needless to say.In view of China's basic national conditions of "more people,less land and less water",the central government has always attached great importance to the issue of food security and made a series of policy arrangements for this purpose.One of the basic measures is the policy of grain purchase price.From the "unified purchase and marketing" plan pricing in the early days of the founding of the PRC to the "dual-track" contract pricing in the early years of reform and opening up,and to the minimum protection price in the 1990 s,China's grain purchase price policy has undergone many major adjustments,and maken positive contributions to ensuring the supply of grain in different periods.Since 2004,the central government has implemented grain purchase price support policies,mainly through the support market purchase policy and target price system,which have played an important role in increasing domestic grain yield year after year,and further consolidated the foundation of national food security.At the same time,structural imbalance and overdraft of production capacity also occur in domestic grain supply,which have a negative impact on food security.This paper takes the minimum purchase price policy of rice and wheat,the temporary purchase and storage policy of corn and the target price system of soybean as the specific research object,and separately studies the influence of grain support market purchase policy and target price system on grain yield and production efficiency,thus systematically examines the effectiveness and deficiencies of grain purchase price support policy in ensuring grain quantity security and sustainable security,and puts forward the corresponding policy recommendations.The main contents of this paper include five parts:First of all,this paper examines the evolution of China's grain purchase price policy and the current situation of food security.Follow "two lines" of the time sequence of policy adjustment and the logical order of "agricultural policy objectives — agricultural system design — grain price policy arrangement — grain price policy effect — agricultural policy objectives of the next stage......",the paper comprehensively reviews the evolution track of China's grain purchase price policy in the past 40 years of reform and opening up,and explores the logic behind the policy adjustment.Based on the three dimensions of "grain supply and demand,self-sufficiency rate and sustainable development capacity",it makes an in-depth analysis of the situation of grain quantity security and sustainable security,and constructs a realistic background for the whole research.Secondly,based on the perspective of yield,this paper investigates the influence of grain support market purchase policy on food security.Taking the minimum purchase price policy of rice and wheat for example and the dynamic panel data of 2006—2017 from 117 major grain-producing counties in three major grain-producing provinces(Jiangxi,Shandong and Jiangsu)as samples,and based on the theory of the adaptive price expectations to build grain "minimum purchase price—total production" dynamic supply response model,it examines the minimum purchase price for grain sowing area and unit area yield through the use of system GMM in two stages.On this basis,it calculates the long-term price elasticity of total grain production and tests the logical relationship between " support market purchase price—total production".Thirdly,based on the perspective of production efficiency,this paper investigates the influence of grain support market purchase policy on food security.Taking the policy of temporary purchase and storage of corn as a natural experiment and the panel data from 2004—2015 of 20 major corn producing provinces as samples,it establishes DID model to investigate the influence of the policy of temporary purchase and storage on corn TFP in two stages.In the first stage,"SFA + Solow Residual Method" is used to calculate corn TFP in different provinces.In the second stage,DID is used to test the net effect of corn temporary purchase and storage policy on corn TFP,analyze the main channels that policy affects corn TFP,and test the logical relationship of " support market purchase—TFP".Fourthly,investigate the impact of grain target price system on food security.Taking the soybean target price system pilot implemented in the northeast region(the three northeastern provinces and Inner Mongolia region)from 2014 to 2016 as the research object,adopting the analysis method of combining theory with descriptive statistics,on the basis of expounding the implementation method of the target price system and its influence mechanism on soybean production,it investigates the effects of the system on soybean yield,corn and soybean planting structure and soybean production efficiency in northeast China.Finally,adopt the method of standard analysis,summarize the conclusion of the whole paper,and put forward the corresponding policy recommendations.The main research conclusions of this paper are as follows:(1)The evolution pattern of grain purchase price policy is the coexistence of gradual marketization and dynamic repetition.There is a two-way interaction between price policy and food security.At the present stage,China's food security can be summarized as "sufficient supply,structural imbalance and weakened sustainable capacity".The frequent adjustment of grain purchase price policy in the past 40 years of reform and opening up is not only the result of multiple factors such as the situation of food security,agricultural policy objectives and institutional arrangements,but also affects the level of food security through changing grain supply.There is a two-way relationship between the policy of grain purchase price and grain yield,that is," relax if plenty,tighten if shortage " and " tighten to growth,relax to decrease".Although China's total grain supply has been sufficient since 2004,there has been a huge difference in the yield,inventory,import and self-sufficiency of the four major grains(rice,wheat,corn and soybean),and increasingly tight constraints on agricultural resources and environment.This means that China's continuous increase and harvest in grain production year after year is,to some extent,at the expense of distorted variety structure and overdrawn resources and environment.(2)The adjustment of grain support market purchase price can promote the total production of corresponding grain varieties to change in the same direction,but the response degree of different varieties varies greatly,thus explaining the problem of "sufficient total supply and structural imbalance" in the current situation of China's food security.According to the two-stage test results,the minimum purchase prices of early indica rice,late indica rice and wheat could significantly positively affect the sown area,while the effect on yield per unit area was heterogeneity.Early indica rice and wheat were significantly positive,while late indica rice was positive but not significant.It means that the government can increase grain yield by raising the purchase price of grain support market,and the effect of the support market purchase policy on ensuring the quantity security of grain is worth affirming.Further reduced the two-stage test results,it is concluded that the three varieties of " minimum purchase price—total production " for long-term supply response flexibility,its size in the order: early indica rice > late indica rice > wheat,shows that in the same adjustment under the condition of the minimum purchase price,the response degree of rice yield was stronger than wheat,and the response degree of early indica rice was stronger than late indica rice.Given that there are significant differences in the response of the yield supply of different grain varieties to the purchase price,and the central government sets the purchase price based on the principle of "production cost + basic income",the unreasonable purchase price of various varieties may be one of the important reasons for the structural imbalance on the grain supply side.(3)The implementation of grain support market purchase policy has resulted in the loss of grain production efficiency,which is probably an important reason for the "weakening of sustainable capacity" of China's grain.From 2004 to 2015,the corn TFP in 20 major production provinces in China showed an overall upward trend.The policy of temporary purchase and storage of corn resulted in a significant decrease of 6.32% in corn TFP in northeast China,which was not conducive to enhancing the capacity of grain sustainable development.The main channels that the policy had the inhibitory effect on the corn TFP were: the overdraft of cultivated land resources was serious,and the yield per unit area of corn decreased significantly;the conversion and replacement between factors are incomplete and insufficient,and the service input of mechanical operation increases too fast and the labor time decreases slowly;excessive input of fertilizer leads to diminishing marginal utility and low effective utilization rate;the update speed of high efficiency corn varieties and methods is slow and the effect of technology progress is weak.The policy has an opposite relationship between "one positive and one negative" influence on grain yield and TFP,which makes it difficult to take into account the dual goals of grain quantity security and sustainable security.(4)On the whole,the target price system promoted the increase of soybean yield and the improvement of corn and soybean planting structure,but it also led to obvious short-term fluctuation of soybean yield.The effect of the policy on the yield mainly depended on the compensation degree of the price difference of the actual subsidy standard.Compared with the temporary purchase and storage policy,the impact of the target price system on production efficiency has not been significantly improved.Due to the differences between the central government and the provinces in determining the subsidy area,the dilution of price subsidy is more common,and led to a subsidy standard difference between provinces,years and years between a very unstable,some provincial subsidy standards are insufficient to compensate for the gap between the target price and the market price,affected farmers bean earnings forecasts,causing soybean planting area and yield ups and downs during the policy implementation.After the soybean price is determined by the market,the price-to-price relationship between soybean and corn is gradually improved,which is conducive to changing the past single continuous cropping structure of corn,guiding the appropriate substitution of soybean to corn,and promoting the optimization of corn and soybean planting structure.This also shows that reasonable determination of subsidy standard is the key to ensure the security of grain quantity in the target price system.In addition,after the temporary purchase and storage policy of soybean in northeast China was changed to the target price system,the average comprehensive technical efficiency of soybean was still lower than that of non-pilot provinces,and the gap between the two even showed a trend of expansion,indicating that the target price system at least did not bring about significant improvement of soybean production efficiency.These conclusions can provide valuable reference for improving the current corn and soybean producer subsidy system.Based on the above conclusions,put forward the following policy recommendations.Firstly,promote the market-oriented reform of grain purchase price support policy,continue to maintain the minimum purchase price policy of rice and wheat,determine the price level reasonably,and further optimize the "market-oriented purchase + subsidy" system of corn and soybean,highlighting the green ecological orientation.Secondly,strengthen coordination and cooperation among grain policies,make them more systematic and coordinated,and promote the upgrading and innovation of agricultural insurance products.Thirdly,improve the mode of supporting the grain production,implement the grain industry policy based on discretion,promote the optimization and upgrading of the planting structure,and attach importance to the establishment of the new type of agricultural operation system.