Construction Of Hunan Agricultural Warehouse In The Period Of The Republic Of China

Agricultural warehouse is a new type of storage prevailing in modern European and American countries,which was introduced into China in the 1920 s and gradually popularized under the advocacy of national government.In 1934,with the improvement of Hunan’s financial situation,initiated by the Hunan Cotton Industry Test Center,the Hunan provincial government began to build agricultural warehouses in collaboration with the Agricultural Warehouse loan syndicate.Hunan Nong Cang takes Tianjin City as the starting point,divides into eight districts to carry on the construction,obtains the preliminary development.In 1936,with the promulgation of the Agricultural Warehouse Law and the establishment of the National Agricultural Warehouse Network,the Hunan Provincial Government issued documents such as the Outline of the Hunan Agricultural Warehouse Plan,the Regulations on the Management of the Agricultural Warehouse of Hunan Province and the Regulations on the Reception of Agricultural Products in the Agricultural Warehouse of Hunan Province,which have specific provisions on the establishment of agricultural warehouses,the sources of funds,the management methods,the scope of business and the way of carrying out them.The construction of agricultural warehouse in Hunan has gone to the stage of standardization and vigorous development,but there are still some shortcomings such as unreasonable distribution,emphasis on storage and inability to solve farmers’ borrowing.After the outbreak of the comprehensive war of resistance,the national government moved west,and the Bureau of Agriculture transferred to the rear to carry out business,advocating the development of cooperative agricultural warehouse.The cooperative agricultural warehouse takes the cooperative or cooperative union as the main business,takes the storage and deposit as the central business,processes,manufactures,reasonably transports and sells as the transportation and marketing business,takes the construction of the countryside,circulates the finance as the ultimate goal,has three main advantages: first,the capital turnover is more convenient;second,the cooperative has the transportation and marketing business,is familiar with the prices of local agricultural products,can sell the agricultural products in the agricultural warehouse at the right price.Third,cooperatives go deep into the countryside,which can make up for the lack of resources and transportation in the construction of agricultural warehouses by provincial governments.As a result,although the Agricultural Bureau ceased its operations in Hunan Agricultural Warehouse in 1939,Hunan Cooperative Agricultural Warehouse developed rapidly and reached its peak in 1940.Only with the decline of the national economy,the national government cut the expenditure on agricultural loans,Hunan cooperative agricultural warehouse after 1941 due to lack of funds,development slowed.During this period,because the basic cooperatives themselves do not have a very stable economic base,the cooperative agricultural warehouse exposed some of the shortcomings such as poor warehouse,large food losses and the limited role of regulating food prices and lending.After 1942,hunan agricultural warehouse due to war,grain control,land collection and other reasons tend to decline.After the victory of the War of Resistance against Japan,the Hunan Provincial Government began to rebuild the agricultural warehouse and decided that the social warehouse department in the cooperative should carry out related business.Although some achievements have been made in the shortage of social storage grain,the development of agricultural warehouse is slow due to insufficient funds.Beginning in 1948,the Ministry of Social Warehousing was renamed the Ministry of Agricultural Warehousing,and the latter returned to independent construction.But because the co-operatives were controlled by landlords and squire,and the distribution of agricultural loans was unreasonable,the agricultural warehouse could not flourish again.By 1949,with the overthrow of the national government in Hunan,the agricultural warehouse had also retreated from the historical stage.