Building Modern Grain Storage Defence Line for Food Security--- Report on grain depot upgrading in Jiangsu Province

Reporter: Shen Jianhua; Correspondent: Cai Zhengrong

“What is the major concern besides production in grain safety?” “Grain storage!” replied a county authority to the correspondent. Urban and rural residents used to store rice in barrels and barns in every family. Now, the grain storage size decreased sharply. Insufficient storage capacity and backward storage technology showed severe effects on national food safety, he further explained.

Survey data indicated that most urban residents in China had their temporary grain storage shrinking from 50-100 to 5-10 kg per person. This situation got more significant for most rural residents whose temporary grain storage dropped from 400 kg to 200 kg per person. 

Enhancing sufficient grain capacity and developing advanced grain storage technology would be the responsibility for state-owned granaries. Prior to the Two Sessions in 2017, special interviews and surveys about the new measures and practices were carried out for grain safety in upgrading state-owned granaries and building modern grain storage defence line for food security in Jiangsu Province, with new understanding and thinking concluded as follow.

Scientific arrangement: efficient and convenient grain sales for farmers

“The construction of grain storage capacity determines grain sales and safe storage for farmers, and concerns national food safety.” introduced Chen Jie, Director of the Jiangsu Province Grain Bureau. Jiangsu Province significantly enhanced its grain storage capacity in last several years, with the total storage capacity of 50 billion jin (1 jin = 0.5 kg), ranking the fourth in China, without any grain stored in the open sky.

Chen further pointed out, “However, the unbalanced layout structure of grain depots characterized by ‘small, few, bad and scattered’ showed prominent contradiction, with the development of social economy, the adjustment in the agricultural structure, as well as the changes in grain production. Therefore, it is imperative for us to upgrade and optimize storage pattern and management. The Provincial Party Committee and Provincial Government both attached great importance to this task.”

To this end, Jiangsu Province followed the ideas of small depot number, large storage capacity, convenience for farmers’ grain sales, and efficient operation, formulated specific plans for grain storage, including restructuring all grain storage and logistics in the province in line with local conditions such as grain purchase and sales, population, village-township merging etc., as well as establishing one grain depot in each village/township for major grain producing areas and one grain depot for main grain sales areas within the radius of 10-20 km, and thus optimizing the overall layout and scale of grain depots cross the province. 

In the principle of “precise storage site selection, rigorous construction standards, strict approval and confirmation”, the final number of the province-wide state-owned grain depots was cut from 1,728 to 855, and formed a three-level storage system featuring logistics centers, central depots, purchase and storage depots, creating favorable conditions for the comprehensive optimization of grain depots and the convenient and efficient depot operation.

In 2013, the total purchase and sales amount of grains for state-owned grain enterprises in Jiangsu Province reached 38.5 million tons, ranking the second in China in terms of total amount and local storage capacity. Nevertheless, among the current grain depots, 65% were built in 1998, and over 30% aged over 30 years with the storage capacity of 4.75 million tons, were in the urgent need of overhaul or removal.

It is pressing for us to maintain and upgrade old and dilapidated grain depots. Since 2012, Jiangsu Province applied actively for the “central subsidies and funds for local granary maintenance”, and became one of the four key supporting provinces in China. The provincial finance allocated RMB 680 million yuan in accordance with the 3:1 matching fund ratio, covering 638 old and dilapidated grain depots to be maintained and restructured, i.e., 2,309 store houses, and 6.18 million ton in capacity. The total input came to RMB 1.5 billion yuan. According to Chen Jie, Jiangsu will, in the spirit of “Three Transforming; Three Promotion”, namely “store house restructuring, facilities upgrading, environment improving, harvest and storage mechanization, storage modernization and management information, fully start the maintenance and reconstruction of old and dilapidated grain depots.

Likewise, Nanjing City took the opportunity of the new round of old grain depot restructuring supported by the Central and Provincial finance, filling the fund gap by integrating local assets and land auction among others cross counties and districts. It was projected to upgrade more than 40 old grain depots built in the 1960s and 1970s. With the fund input of RMB 300 million yuan, there would be 9 big grain depots to be constructed, an increase of around 250,000 ton in storage capacity.

Changzhou City was the champion of rice yield per unit for consecutive eleven years in Jiangsu Province. The state-owned or state holding grain storage enterprises in Changzhou City had some problems, such as dilapidated and aging grain depots, unreasonable grain depot layout, and outdated infrastructure and facilities of grain storage. The total fund input in Changzhou City was expected to reach about RMB 50 million yuan in 2013 for the maintenance, upgrading and restructuring for 19 grain depots.

As a miniature of the “Three Restructuring; Three Promotion”, over the rooftops of national and local grain depots in the northern part of Changzhou City, the 100 kw grid-connected PV power plant made of over 460 crystalline silicon parts, converted solar power into clean energy, and provided the electricity for the operation of grain depot facilities.

Scientific grain storage: low-temperature and green storage

“Under new circumstances we have to make new standards for grain depot function upgrading, i.e., enhancing the harvest and storage mechanization level, scientific grain storage level, and IT-based management level.” Said Chen, this is the ultimate goal for us to turn the grain depot maintenance and upgrading into good quality, demonstrative and honesty project for Jiangsu Province.

Mechanization is key to transforming from packed grain transport to bulk grain transport featuring bulk storage, bulk transport, bulk loading and bulk unloading. In last several years, Jiangsu Province introduced about 4,000 sets of advanced applicable machines and facilities for cleaning, transporting, replenishing and unloading grains etc., and thus reinforcing the mechanized operation capacity of grain depots.

Taicang City put in RMB 7.5 million yuan to upgrade the grain depots and realized mechanized and automatic management in the whole grain storage process covering grain collection on the dock, digital weighting, mechanical transporting, low-temperature storage, re-circulation fumigation and so on, and thus making the bulk grain transport level reach up to 100%.

To meet the urgent need of quick sales for high-moisture grains for major grain growers and grain purchase and sale enterprises, Taicang city put in RMB 13 million yuan to install the low-temperature drying facilities for the Shaxi Grain Depot, Xintang Grain Depot and Nanjiao Grain Depot in 2013. Currently, the low-temperature drying facilities in Taicang City reached an installed capacity of 520 tons. 

Low-temperature and green grain storage is effective for Jiangsu Province in the “grain storage technology promotion” practice. Locating at the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, Jiangsu Province has the lowest terrain among all provinces, and the proportion of surface water resources ranks first in the China. The above facts lay the solid foundation for the vigorous development of the shallow geothermal energy low-temperature grain storage technology for the surface water resources. 

In the Jiangjunshan Grain Depot in Nanjing City, the reporter witnessed the benefits of shallow geothermal energy low-temperature grain storage technology in grain storage. Shallow geothermal energy drops the temperature of underground water or river water from 18℃to 10℃, and energy consumption was only 1/3 of grain coolers. To adopt shallow geothermal energy temperature control system makes the storage time keep above one year and below two years and reduces grain losses. The shallow geothermal energy low-temperature grain storage technology is effective in controlling pests and reducing the application amount and residues of pesticides and chemicals. Moreover, the above-mentioned technology has some advantages such keeping grains fresh and increasing storage efficiency. 

Built in 2012, the PV Power Plant of Hongzehu Grain Logistics realized electricity self-supply since the grid-connection. This PV power plant of 3,000 square meters was built by paving 1,148 thin-film-type battery panels, with the maximal power generation capacity of 109.6 kW per hour and the design service life of 25 years.

Jiangsu Province has done much more in “green grain storage”. The PV power plant in the rooftops of grain depots in the northern part of Changzhou city, provides the green power of 112,978.2 kwh for the grain depots every year, and thus saving 9.54 tons of standard coal each year, and reducing 203.36 kg of smoke and dust, and 1,095 kg of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and others annually. 

In last several years, Jiangsu Province expanded the application of the grain storage technology. By the end of 2016, micro-computer temperature measurement system was installed in the grain depots with the storage capacity of 10.85 million tons, accounting for 46.7% of the effective storage capacity in the whole province. The re-circulation fumigation was applied in the grain depots with the storage capacity of 8.887 million tons, accounting for 39.8% of the effective storage capacity. The mechanical ventilation was adopted in the grain depots with the storage capacity of 19.83 million tons, occupying 85.4% of the effective storage capacity.

Scientific management: enhancing storage efficiency and reducing moldy grains by digital grain depot

In the autumn for grain collection and purchase, it is interesting to see grain purchase and storage. A truck slowed to stop in weighting platform, and the e-voice reported the grain weight. The LED screen standing beside weighting platform displayed the information of “weight 10,532 kg and please go to the No.28 warehouse”.

Around the weighting platform, using both the IoT (Internet of Things) sensing devices and the auto-control devices, such as weighting platform, vehicle detectors, sensors, RFID readers and cameras, the information on the trucks and the grains loaded by the trucks was recorded in e-labels, which included variety, grade, moisture/dryness, the code of arrived warehouse and others.

According to technical personnel in charge of the “digital grain depot” system, this digital system abandoned the old way of manual writing, accounting, and statistics, and realized automatic data collection and automatic work flow with rapidity and precision. Manager for the grain depots could monitor real time information about grain vehicles and grain weighting.

A grain vehicle driver said: “It used to take a long time for us to sell the grains, running back and forth with documents and receipts in hand. But now we have the RFID and e-card (with RFID chip), which make grain sales much more convenient, and save time and human labour”.

Chen Jie further introduced that in the last several years, China’s grain circulation industry developed fast, with several problems to be solved, such as large labor intensity, low efficiency, extensive management and data distortion. Jiangsu Province, as the “Pilot Demonstration Province for National Grain Informatization” and “National Key Project Demonstration Site for Informatization Construction”, was already included into the “National Internet of Things Application Demonstration Project for the Grain Storage and Transport Supervision”.

Late 2016, the State Grain Administration, the Jiangsu Provincial Grain Bureau and the Aerospace Information Company, signed “Agreement on Demonstration Application and Promotion of Internet of Things in the Grain Circulation Industry”, and the “digital grain depot” system was established, This system could effectively solve some problems, such as accurate collection and analysis of grain purchase information, operation automation of grains in and out of depots and fraud identification, and grain storage automation and intelligence.

There were shoddy grains to be purchased during grain collection and purchase, and some potential safety hazards, meanwhile, a huge amount of national grain subsidies were defrauded. Recently, many grain depots were brought into the spotlight as the media exposed to the public about such loopholes in grain purchase and storage. To ensure grain safety we must solve these problems.

The Hongzehu Grain Reserves Depot is the earliest “digital grain depot” among the grain depots in Jiangsu Province. When the 3D images of grain depots in the screen on the wall are clicked by mouse, the temperature data of any warehouse could be seen clearly. A total of 120-140 temperature sensors arranged in 4 layers have real-time display of their temperature. Moreover, there are special sensors and automatic devices in humidity, pressure and gases in the grain depots, all data were obviously showed.

“With 'digital grain depot', every grain could be tracked and searched from transportation to entry into grain depot, to storage and to sales. All grain data could be obtained truly, quickly and effortlessly, and it was ensured that each grain is safe and traceable.” Wang Xuequan, Director of the grain depot pointed to the camera for the real-time video and image transmission.

“In the past, when the peak season of grain purchase came, the grain depots had to put in lots of human and material resources to deal with the peak season, which increased labor costs and left hidden hazards. At present, ‘digital grain depot’ only needs 1/10 of labor to realize whole process supervision in input, allocation, output, and inventory.” Said the management personnel of grain depots.

In May 2012, the Aerospace Information Company signed contracts with 16 of the first round of provincial grain logistics centers and major central grain depots in Jiangsu Province, officially launched the “digital grain depot” system, and used the Internet of Things to guarantee grain storage and safe transport by pilots. In 2013, Jiangsu Province completed the construction of 29 "digital grain depots" in all. 

“National grain reserve safety is the top priority in realizing grain security. As an important pillar for modern grain circulation, 'digital grain depot' could reflect objective and true information about grain storage, increase efficiency, avoid errors and mistakes, and ensure quality of stored grains, and thus providing a better guarantee for food security.” said Chen Jie thoughtfully.

SOURCE：http://www.farmer.com.cn/2014/03/03/99143156.html