China’s State Administration of Grain (SAG) is stepping up its effort to protect grain reserve by tightening its policies and increasing granary size as concerns on pilferage and substandard storage facilities rise.
According to SAG's chief engineer, He Yi, the government will implement more conclusive measures aimed at addressing the issue of internal corruption and intensifying grain security.
The SAG's roadmap to protect the country's grain reserves also includes added video surveillance to be installed at granaries as well as regular random inspections, He added.
Officials from the SAG announced its plan after grain authorities from the central and provincial governments sealed around 25,000 metric tons of rice at a Tieling, Liaoning-based warehouse. The China Central Television earlier reported that the agency purchased old rice and stored the commodity as fresh stocks.
However, China has guaranteed that state-owned warehouses procure agricultural products at minimum purchase price to ensure farmers' interests are protected.
According to official data, the state-run China Grain Reserves Co. dominated the gain reserves. The company, with 346 central grain storages across the nation, purchased a total of 125 million tons of grain last year.
According to the China National Grain and Oils Information Center, the data accounts for the 20 percent of the country's grain output.
To supervise the grain reserve norms in terms of national basis, Zhang Jiang, a researcher at the Beijing-based Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, urged the government to use third-party agency-offered services.
The agricultural center has also estimated that a quarter of China's grain reserves are either stored in poor condition or have already expired. As well, the hub stated that over 20 million tons of grains are wasted annually.
"Grain reserve companies must build more room for new grain by selling old stocks and conduct special inspections to ensure that all the national granaries are efficiently used for storing grain," Zhang remarked.
The government further stressed that it plans to maintain the demand-supply balance by building new warehouses that can cater to up to 50 million tons of grain this 2015.
SAG's department of policy and law director-general Yan Bo said that the agency's next priority is to have a grain logistics that can aid in saving up to 2 percent of losses in grain transportation.
The grain authority also eyes to construct storage facilities with drying equipment in the majority of grain-producing areas in the country.
In 2014, both the central government and the private sector invested a total of 22.15 billion yuan to ensure food security.