On January 17, data released by the National Bureau of Statistics showed that my country's total grain output last year was 682.85 million tons, an increase of 13.36 million tons or 2.0% over the previous year. In terms of varieties, the output of paddy was 212.84 million tons, an increase of 0.5%; the output of wheat was 136.95 million tons, an increase of 2.0%; the output of corn was 272.55 million tons, an increase of 4.6%; the output of soybean was 16.4 million tons, a decrease of 16.4%.

"At the end of December, the Central Rural Work Conference proposed to ensure the bottom line of national food security, emphasized the vigorous expansion of soybean and oilseed production, and set the goal of ensuring that grain output is stable at more than 1.3 trillion kilograms. In 2022, my country's grain output is likely to reach 14,000. 100 million catties." On January 17, Li Chunding, director of the Institute of International Economics of the School of Economics and Management of China Agricultural University, said at the Guoshi Forum.

Li Chunding mainly shared his views from four aspects: the situation of grain production and demand, the situation of grain import and the price surge of bulk agricultural products, the situation of China's food security, and the situation of the seed industry economy.

First, in terms of grain production and demand, Li Chunding believes that there are two major trends: the recovery of the consumer market and the upgrading of the consumption structure. The recovery of the consumer market includes the growth of household consumption demand, the rise of social production demand, and the increase in demand from strategic reserves. The upgrading of consumption structure is characterized by a continuous transition from well-fed to well-fed, and the diversification of food consumption flow.

Li Chunding believes that in the future in the field of food and food and agricultural products, with the improvement of the economic income level of the masses, the demand for nutritious, healthy and high-quality agricultural products will further expand, which means that our demand for eggs, milk and meat will be further expanded. The demand will be greater than that of traditional rations.

Second, grain imports and the soaring prices of bulk agricultural products. "Talking about the demand for food production, one thing that cannot be ignored is that the import of food is an important topic, especially in 2021, the prices of bulk agricultural products will show a soaring trend, so the soaring of food imports and the prices of bulk agricultural products will be the whole grain market in 2021 and by 2022. There are two unavoidable keywords or important areas and aspects." Li Chunding said. Judging from my country's grain import data in 2021, the grain import volume in 2021 is 164.539 million tons, an increase of 18% year-on-year, and the soybean import volume in 2021 is 96.518 million tons, a year-on-year decrease of 3.8%, accounting for 58.6% of the total import. In 2021, the import volume of edible vegetable oil will be 10.392 million tons, a year-on-year decrease of 3.7%, accounting for 6.3% of total imports. Li Chunding said that from the perspective of absolute import value, import value, and import value, soybean and vegetable oil both rose because of rising prices. For some other categories of grain products, including wheat, corn, rice and rice, sorghum, etc., currently available data show that the import volume from January to November 2021 will increase year-on-year.

At the same time, the price of international bulk agricultural products is closely related to imports, which has already affected my country's future domestic price index. Li Chunding said that bulk agricultural products are in fact an important part of the CPI index. In the future, if the prices of international bulk agricultural products continue to rise, the prices of domestic agricultural products will inevitably rise. CPI rises in tandem. The data shows that the prices of most bulk agricultural products will rise in 2021, and the weekly average closing prices of soybean, wheat, corn and soybean oil futures contracts are 11%, 34%, 40% and 37% higher than the same period last year, respectively; the international cotton index (SM grade) per ton $2,757, up 46% year-over-year. At the same time, data show that in 2021, the FAO Food Price Index will increase by 27.2% year-on-year, reaching the highest level in a decade. Vegetable oil prices rose 65.8% year-on-year, hitting a record high. "It can be seen that the risks and uncertainties brought by international bulk agricultural product prices to our future food imports, as well as to food security, all pose certain challenges and risks, and also form the possibility of imported inflation. "Li Chunding thinks.

In terms of imported grain prices in 2022, he expects that the overall price of grain in the first half of the year may still be at a relatively high level, and the pattern of soaring grain prices is still difficult to change. The new crown pneumonia epidemic has improved. Under such a situation, the prices of global bulk agricultural products may have a downward trend in the second half of the year.

Third, in terms of my country's food security situation, Li Chunding said that my country's current status quo is that rations are absolutely safe, and feed grains are highly dependent on external demand. The existing risks and uncertainties are mainly reflected in the following: First, the external uncertainty of food security increases, mainly due to the impact of foreign markets, which on the one hand is due to the rise in prices. In addition, the dependence on external demand is too high, which is itself an uncertainty. Second, the risk of rising costs of agricultural means of production is difficult to eliminate. Third, the overall tightening balance between food supply and demand will continue. Fourth, the situation brought about by the superposition of the "three emotions" of epidemic situation, disaster situation and public opinion will also bring certain risks.

Fourth, in terms of the economic situation of the seed industry, Li Chunding said: "The seed industry is the chip of grain, and it is an important aspect of the stuck neck project. Therefore, the development of the seed industry in the future will be an important channel for increasing agricultural income."

At present, China's seed industry market is the second largest in the world, and its growth rate is faster than that of the global market. The scale of my country's seed industry market has grown from 48.2 billion yuan in 2014 to 55.2 billion yuan in 2020, accounting for 18.34% of the global market. The driving force for the future growth of my country's seed industry market scale is mainly from biological breeding and consumption upgrades, which drive the rapid growth of demand for high-end vegetable seeds.

However, Li Chunding also said that in general, the competitiveness of the seed industry is not strong, the competition pattern of the seed industry is relatively scattered, and there are few large seed industry company groups. From the perspective of the global seed industry market concentration index in 2020, the world is about 52%, and the seed industry concentration in the Chinese market is only 12%, which is far lower than the global market concentration.

At present, on the one hand, my country's seed companies have become the main players in the market. The strength of talents has been continuously improved, the proportion of scientific research personnel in seed companies has increased significantly, and the independent ability of varieties has been greatly improved. The variety of crops independently bred accounts for more than 95% of the area, and the varieties that are bred independently occupy an absolute dominant position. On the other hand, compared with the advanced level of foreign countries, my country's seed industry is still far behind. The top four global seed export shares in 2019 are the Netherlands, France, the United States and Germany, which together account for 51.6% of the global seed trade value. In 2019, the international market share of China's seed industry was 1.35%, which was still 0.02% in 2015.

In the future direction of my country's seed industry development, Li Chunding believes that under the background that the country has made important arrangements for the development of the seed industry, it is necessary to build a modern commercial breeding system around the entire industry chain, and strengthen the development, utilization and utilization of agricultural germplasm resources. Transgenic technology cultivates new varieties with high yield, high quality, multi-resistance and high efficiency to ensure food security and other aspects.