Projects Promoting High-quality Grain Make Progress

More than 3,800 projects to promote the supply of high-quality grain had been completed across China by the end of last year, accounting for almost half the planned total, the National Food and Strategic Reserves Administration said.

A national program jointly released by the administration and the Ministry of Finance in 2017 called for more efforts to be made to increase the supply of quality grain on the domestic market -- including measures such as enhancing quality supervision during production and improving storage facilities -- to ensure food security.

The program had proceeded smoothly over the past three years, with more than 8,000 projects under construction or to be built, Chao Mingbo, deputy chief of the administration's Planning and Development Department, told a news conference on Wednesday.

By the end of last year, more than 4,500 projects had been started, with more than 3,800 completed, and a total of 75 billion yuan ($10.8 billion) invested, he said.

The completed projects included more than 3,000 service centers across China for harvested grains and more than 400,000 grain storage facilities. The service centers provided services for farmers ranging from grain cleaning, drying, storage and processing to sales, and had played an increasingly important role in improving the quality of grains sold on the market and reducing losses during storage and distribution, Chao said. And that helped farmers increase their incomes.

Service centers in Anhui province have provided cleaning and drying services for 4 million metric tons of grain. Last year they prevented the loss of 100,000 tons of grain, which otherwise would have been lost due to sustained rainy weather after harvesting, he said.

Another 2,000 such centers are under construction or will be built, he said, extending their availability to all major grain production counties in China.

Local authorities plan to build more than 1,500 projects to improve quality inspections and supervision of harvested grains, Chao said, with 400 already completed.

More grain samples were being tested every month, which had improved the safety of food available for sale, he said.