Proactively address the shortcomings in post-harvest grain services to better ensure food security.

　　Food security is a major national priority. Ensuring a stable and safe supply of grain and important agricultural products has always been the top priority in building a strong agricultural country. To handle this "top priority" well, General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized the need to simultaneously strengthen efforts on both the "addition" and "subtraction" ends of grain production. While improving grain production capacity, it is also crucial to enhance post-harvest grain services to secure China's rice bowl more firmly and steadily. As an important grain-producing province in the country, Henan shoulders the heavy responsibility of ensuring national food security. In recent years, Henan Province has earnestly implemented the decisions and deployments of the Party Central Committee, continuously intensified efforts to save and reduce losses in post-harvest grain processes, and achieved positive results. However, the task of saving and reducing losses across all links of the post-harvest grain industry chain remains heavy, with leakages at every stage. Therefore, in-depth analysis of the current status of Henan's post-harvest grain services and proposing improvement plans are of great significance to address the shortcomings in Henan's post-harvest grain services and effectively ensure national food security.
　　I. Current Status of Post-Harvest Grain Services in Henan Province
　　Focusing on safeguarding and managing the strategic goals of the "Central Plains Granary" and "Major Provincial Reserves," Henan Province attaches great importance to saving grain and reducing losses. In accordance with the requirements of the "Implementation Opinions on Comprehensively Strengthening Resource Conservation in Henan Province," it has earnestly implemented measures to save and reduce losses in the grain circulation links. Through continuous efforts in recent years, the loss rate in Henan's grain circulation links has significantly decreased. According to the 2023 statistical survey results of the Grain and Oil Market News, the loss rate of farmers' grain storage in Henan has dropped from 8%-10% ten years ago to about 3%. Among them, the loss rate for wheat is about 4%, rice about 1.8%, corn about 3.5%, and soybeans about 1.5%. The comprehensive loss rate of grain storage enterprises remains stable below 0.5%.
　　(1) Current Status of Post-Harvest Grain Service System Construction. To strengthen the management of the "High-Quality Grain Project" post-harvest grain service system construction and improve the efficiency of special funds for the construction of the post-harvest grain service system, ensuring the smooth implementation of construction projects, Henan Province issued the "Henan Province Post-Harvest Grain Service System Construction Project Management Measures" in 2018 to strengthen the construction and management of post-harvest grain service centers. The post-harvest grain service centers are built mainly by grain storage enterprises, grain and oil processing enterprises, and farmers' cooperatives, ensuring that each county has more than two construction entities. These centers provide farmers with services such as "cleaning on behalf, drying on behalf, storage on behalf, processing on behalf, and sales on behalf," thereby improving the level of specialized agricultural services.
　　(2) Current Status of Grain Storage Services. First, warehouse capacity renovation. In the past two years, Henan Province has renovated nearly 1 million tons of warehouse capacity, especially addressing issues such as high conventional storage loss rates and quality deterioration during grain storage by implementing a green grain storage upgrade action. The province's low-temperature, quasi-low-temperature, and controlled atmosphere grain storage capacity has reached 6.71 million tons, ensuring high-quality and efficient storage and maintaining grain freshness. Second, inspection and rectification of grain storage sites. In accordance with the "double random, one public" supervision requirements, inspections were conducted on summer and autumn grain purchases, local reserve grain, and grain and oil inventories to promptly identify and resolve food safety risks. In 2023, a total of 71 inspections were organized. During the policy grain and oil inventory inspections, 519 grain storage sites were comprehensively checked, with 794 issues found and 778 rectified.
　　(3) Current Status of Grain Purchase Services. First, resolutely winning the tough battle of grain purchase. During the 2023 summer grain harvest, the province experienced widespread continuous rainy weather, causing issues such as sprouting and germination in wheat grains in some areas. To effectively respond to extreme weather impacts and resolutely win the grain purchase battle, the grain and material reserve system purchased a total of 30.28 billion jin of wheat across the province, with 8.456 billion jin purchased at market prices, safeguarding the minimum selling price for grain farmers. Second, cracking down on illegal and irregular purchase behaviors. The Henan Provincial Grain and Material Reserve Bureau, together with market supervision departments, formulated the "Implementation Plan for Deepening Comprehensive Supervision of Grain Purchase and Sales," establishing a joint supervision and coordination mechanism. During the summer and autumn grain purchase, joint law enforcement inspections were conducted with market supervision departments to severely crack down on illegal acts such as withholding payment to farmers and downgrading or underpricing grain.
　　(4) Current Status of Grain Processing Services. The Provincial Grain and Material Reserve Bureau, in cooperation with the Provincial Finance Department, took the lead nationwide in issuing the "Implementation Plan for Deepening the High-Quality Grain Project," which clearly stipulates that during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, 300 million yuan in fiscal funds will be allocated annually to support technological upgrades and equipment improvements for grain and oil processing enterprises. To date, Henan has supported 116 projects implemented by grain and oil processing enterprises, with a total investment exceeding 1.62 billion yuan. These measures have optimized the supply and demand structure of grain and oil products and comprehensively enhanced the integrity, closeness, and rationality of the province's grain industry chain. Grain and oil enterprises have developed rapidly, and brand building has also achieved remarkable results. The Provincial Grain and Material Reserve Bureau has conducted the selection of "Henan Good Grain and Oil" products, identifying a total of 295 such products.
　　II. Prominent Shortcomings in Henan Province's Post-Harvest Grain Services
　　(1) Some bottlenecks exist in farmers' "production and sales integration." First, grain loss caused by farmers' reluctance to sell. In recent years, due to external factors such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war, energy prices and grain product prices have risen significantly, leading to increased delays in post-harvest sales by farmers. According to the author's 2022 field survey, farmers have high expectations for future corn price increases and exhibit strong reluctance to sell, with some delaying corn sales. According to Song Deguo, a farm owner in Huaxian County, only about 10% of farmers around him have currently sold corn, which is 10 percentage points lower than usual. Compared to ordinary households, large-scale households show more obvious grain storage and delayed sales. Due to rudimentary storage facilities, the increase in self-storage methods such as "ground storage" has raised farmers' storage costs and increased corn storage losses. Second, some farmers' sales interests are harmed. There are illegal behaviors such as unscrupulous merchants mixing inferior goods and smuggling private goods, seriously affecting grain quality and market order. Meanwhile, regulatory departments have certain weaknesses in supervising the grain market, leading to the existence of some violations.
　　(2) Some shortcomings exist in grain storage and logistics. First, aging storage facilities and insufficient storage capacity. Most of Henan Province's grain storage facilities were built in earlier periods and are aging and outdated. The high degree of aging makes it impossible to meet modern grain storage requirements, such as controlling temperature, humidity, and ventilation standards, resulting in difficulty ensuring grain storage quality. Second, the level of storage management needs improvement. Some grain storage units in Henan have relatively low management levels, with issues such as irregular management and inadequate supervision. For example, monitoring and regulating the grain storage environment are not timely or precise enough, easily causing problems like mold and pest infestations; the degree of informatization in storage is low, and management methods are outdated, affecting the efficiency of grain inventory and circulation management. Third, the transportation network is incomplete and the level of logistics informatization is low. Although Henan is located in central China with convenient transportation, there are still problems in grain transportation. The transportation network is underdeveloped, especially the infrastructure connecting rural and remote areas such as roads and railways needs further improvement. This leads to low transportation efficiency and high losses during transport, affecting the quality of post-harvest grain services. Some grain logistics enterprises in Henan have relatively low informatization levels, with poor and non-transparent logistics information, making it difficult to achieve full-process visual management. This results in inaccurate and untimely information during grain transportation, hindering timely allocation and guarantee of grain.
　　(3) There are some shortcomings in the deep processing and brand building of grain and oil in Henan. First, deep processing is insufficient. Henan's grain and oil industry mainly uses agricultural products such as grains and oilseeds as raw materials, but it is relatively lacking in deep processing. Many enterprises are still at the stage of simple processing and lack the capability for in-depth processing of grain and oil products. Due to insufficient deep processing levels, the products produced by enterprises are single in variety, have low added value, and cannot meet the market demand for diversified and high value-added products. Second, there is a significant gap in brand building among grain and oil enterprises in Henan. Many enterprises lack innovation in product positioning, packaging design, and market promotion. Their brand image is not prominent enough, making it difficult to compete with well-known domestic and international brands. In addition, the lack of strong brand promotion strategies and resource investment results in low market influence and brand awareness, and a small market share.
　　3. Policy Recommendations
　　(1) Continuously cultivate the main bodies of post-harvest grain service centers to provide farmers with "five-generation" grain services. First, focus on the construction entities such as grain storage enterprises, grain and oil processing enterprises, and farmers' cooperatives, and continuously promote the formation and cultivation of the main bodies of post-harvest grain service centers. Second, provide support in terms of construction land, funds, equipment updates, and talent support to promote the continuous improvement of the "five-generation" service capabilities of post-harvest grain service centers in grain cleaning, drying, storage, processing, and sales.
　　(2) Continuously optimize grain reserves. First, emphasize investment in scientific grain storage and storage facilities, actively introduce advanced grain storage technologies and equipment, promote the intelligence and automation of the grain storage process, and improve the technological content and efficiency of grain storage. Second, strengthen the construction of warehouse management teams by enhancing the professional quality and skill levels of management personnel through training and learning, enabling them to possess excellent warehouse management skills and rich operational experience. Third, establish a "province-city-county" three-level grain emergency management system, relying on the grain emergency guarantee center to enhance the emergency guarantee capabilities for responding to sudden events.
　　(3) Improve deep processing capabilities and brand building of grain. First, enhance enterprises' grain processing capabilities by introducing advanced processing technologies and equipment, including automated and intelligent production lines and equipment, to improve processing efficiency and product quality. Strengthen communication and cooperation with suppliers and partners to optimize and integrate the supply chain, ensuring timely supply and stable quality of raw materials. Second, actively promote the brand building of Henan grain and oil. Strengthen standard formulation and release the "Yu Mai" standard to create a high-quality wheat brand in Henan. Using the national modern logistics industrial park as a carrier, establish a grain industry cluster development zone integrating grain "production-purchase-storage-processing-sales" across the province. Cultivate and build a number of highly recognizable, influential, and reputable brands to increase product market share.
　　(4) Establish a mechanism linking the interests and risks of farmers and grain purchasers. First, ensure that farmers can sell their grain after planting. Support agricultural enterprises to adopt contract farming models to guarantee that farmers can sell their grain after planting. Second, explore establishing a risk-sharing mechanism between farmers and grain purchasers. For example, fully utilize the price discovery and risk hedging functions of the futures market, improve the grain futures trading market to alleviate grain price fluctuations, protect farmers' income from grain planting, and promote timely sales and storage of grain after harvest. Establish a multi-dimensional insurance system covering the entire grain production and marketing process to significantly enhance the risk resistance of new types of agricultural business entities in grain. Clarify the responsibility boundaries of relevant parties in grain price insurance, and build a three-level premium-sharing mechanism among central finance, local finance, and new agricultural business entities. Strengthen the promotion and publicity of grain price insurance to improve the awareness and willingness of new agricultural business entities to participate in insurance, addressing the current issue of relatively low participation in grain price insurance. Gradually include grain price insurance in the policy agricultural insurance catalog to fully leverage its policy effect in stabilizing income expectations and grain production.