An analysis of the reasons for the substantial increase of corn consumption in China

Introduction: the analysis results of the domestic grain supply and demand balance recently completed by the national grain and Oil Information Center show that in the just concluded corn market year (2004 / 05, October of last year to September of next year), the domestic corn consumption has increased substantially, estimated to be 125 million tons, an increase of 5 million tons over the previous year, an increase of more than 4% It is expected that in the market year that has already started (2005 / 06, from October to September of the next year), the domestic corn consumption will continue to grow, and the total consumption is expected to reach the level of 128 million tons Before 2004 / 05, China's domestic corn consumption has not reached the level of 120 million tons However, the analysis of China's corn supply and demand balance completed by many institutions shows that China's domestic corn consumption demand has already exceeded 120 million tons For example, the U.S Department of agriculture forecasts that China's domestic corn consumption demand will reach 123.1 million tons in 2001 / 02, and then shows a linear growth in the following years In 2004 / 05, it has exceeded 130 million tons, and it is expected that China's domestic corn consumption demand will increase to 134 million tons in 2005 / 06 The direct result of exaggerating China's corn domestic consumption capacity is to seriously underestimate China's corn inventory level, thus affecting the correct analysis of China's corn market trend China's domestic corn consumption demand is overestimated, the important reason is that it is unable to make a generally accurate estimate of corn feed demand According to the production of meat, poultry, egg and milk, there are many technical difficulties in estimating the consumption of corn The transformation of China's breeding industry from traditional to modern, to a large extent, makes it difficult to estimate the demand for corn Many grain experts have seen the increasing trend of corn consumption However, when determining the level of corn consumption, due to the lack of depth of research, the conclusions of analysis and prediction are biased Some studies have shown that the proportion of protein feed and energy feed in China is always low Generally speaking, the quality of feed is not high, and the protein content in feed is lower than the normal level It has always been thought that one jin of pork needs to consume four Jin of grain In fact, in the case of industrial feed, the protein content in the feed is increased to a reasonable level, and it does not need to consume so much grain to produce one jin of pork With the development of feed industry in China, the consumption of industrial feed is increasing, the consumption of protein feed is increasing, the production of meat, poultry, eggs and milk is increasing, but the consumption of energy feed such as corn is relatively decreasing Basically because of this reason, for a period of time, the domestic consumption level of corn in China has not increased in the same proportion when the production of meat, poultry, egg and milk has increased substantially Things are developing and things are changing According to the monitoring of the State Grain and oil information center, after entering 2004 / 05, China's domestic corn consumption has shown new situations: first, the corn industrial consumption has increased significantly; second, other feed and industrial grain (such as rice and wheat) have decreased due to the price comparison with corn and other reasons, while the consumption of corn has increased, for example, the price of early rice is higher than that of corn, making feed use Early rice and industrial early rice are replaced by corn; third, after the amount of protein feed has reached a certain degree, the substitution effect of protein feed on energy feed has decreased, and the consumption of corn needs to increase with the increase of meat, poultry, egg and milk production The combination of various reasons has promoted the significant growth of domestic corn consumption in 2004 / 05, showing a different situation from the previous years From the past year's situation, 2004 / 05 may be a year of great changes in China's corn consumption market From the analysis of the whole grain market, the change of corn consumption may, to a large extent, explain the structural changes that are occurring in the current domestic grain market: the improvement of people's living standards, the increase of meat, poultry, egg and cream consumption, the decrease of grain consumption such as wheat, rice, etc.; the expansion of protein meal consumption due to the progress of the breeding industry, the rapid expansion of soybean imports; the feed consumption of corn And industrial use is increasing Structural changes in the domestic grain market have led to new features in different grain markets An in-depth analysis of the supply and demand of specific grain markets will help us to understand the current market and predict the future market It should be noted that at present, according to the decline of wheat and rice consumption, the national food consumption demand is estimated to be low This is very harmful to the food supply security of a large food consuming country In fact, due to the rapid growth of soybean consumption and the increase of corn consumption demand, despite the downward trend of domestic wheat and rice demand, the total grain consumption of the country is still growing, of which corn is expected to reach 128 million tons and soybean consumption will reach 43 million tons At present, it is estimated that the total grain consumption in 2005 / 06 will reach the level of 500 million tons for the first time, which will be a historical data.