The majority of China’s grain is transported by road. It is estimated that approximately 143 million tons of commoditized grain is transported by road once and 330 million tons is transported by road twice for around 800 million tons of total road transport grain volume based on the commoditization rate above, direct grain vendor delivery rate, waterborne shipping volume, and railway shipping volume after taking rail-sea combined transport into account. Most grain road transport contracts stipulate an acceptable total weight reduction rate of 0.1% at present. Roughly half of the weight reduction that occurs during loading and unloading is due to the removal of impurities stipulated by national standards, thus actual loss is estimated to be 0.05%, or around 400,000 tons.

Source: China Grain Economy, issue 4, 2022

(Author Affiliation: Department of Safety Warehousing and Technology, National Food and Strategic Reserves Administration)