Chapter 22 2. The blame for beating the capitalists falls on the peasants

As we have mentioned earlier, the unified grain purchase and marketing policy is a policy introduced as a last resort to combat speculative capitalists disrupting the grain market when the contradiction between grain supply and demand is acute. It is a temporary solution to deal with capitalists.After the implementation, it did have a relatively obvious effect, controlling the market and stabilizing the food situation.And those speculative capitalists who tried to monopolize and control grain collapsed one after another. Most of the private grain merchants went out of business, and only about 20% continued to engage in some consignment business, but they soon became public-private partnerships in the socialist industrial and commercial transformation.

The capitalists were "disappeared", but the means of dealing with them survived.Because the grain situation in China is still tense, it is naturally much easier to control and stabilize the grain market by retaining this militarized means. As a result, it fell on the peasants to beat the capitalists. We can easily see that the key to unified purchase and marketing is unified purchase, and it is low-price unified purchase. In order to control the source of grain, the state purchases grain from farmers at a lower price through administrative means.This is an emergency measure in the case of extreme food shortage in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, and it is also the road that some countries had to go through in the early stages of industrialization.The problem is that we have been engaged in it for 40 years at once, suppressing agriculture and hurting farmers.

In the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, we almost started the construction of the industrial system on a blank basis. At that time, the Chinese did not even solve the problem of eating. "First food, second construction" has become the two major tasks facing the Chinese government.The country must have enough grain sources to ensure food for the people of the whole country and the needs of industrialization construction. However, under the conditions at that time, the country did not have enough financial resources to obtain grain through equivalent exchange in the market, so it had to use the means of government administrative allocation. Get food from farmers at low prices.

Chinese farmers are the most reasonable, and the government's helpless choice has won the support of the majority of farmers.At that time, farmers regarded handing in the purchased grain as a political task, and they always handed over the best grain to the state after harvest.Even if production is reduced due to disasters, farmers would rather tighten their belts, but they must first ensure that the "patriotic grain" is handed over.Due to the rapid development of industrialization and the large increase in urban population, the social demand for food is increasing, far exceeding the production of food.We might as well look at the grain consumption in 1960. The average annual ration of raw grain per person in the south of the Huaihe River was 180 kg of raw grain, and the average annual ration of raw grain per person in the north of the Huai River was 150 kg. In the disaster-stricken areas, it was below 150 kg.Even if we calculate 180 kilograms of raw grain, the finished grain is only 126 kilograms, which is 10.5 kilograms per month. The lowest standard for urban residents is 12.5 kilograms per person per month, and the average worker is more than 14 kilograms.As farmers who directly produce food, their physical exertion is several times that of ordinary urban residents, but their food consumption is lower than the lowest level of urban residents.That is to say, our peasants would rather starve themselves than try their best to ensure that urban residents have enough to eat.Provincial hospitality, the traditional virtue of the Chinese nation, is so vividly reflected in contemporary Chinese farmers.

We raise our hands for such a great farmer! We also sigh for such kind farmers! However, the "Left" deviation made the mistake of using the greatness and kindness of the peasants as a bargaining chip. After the implementation of the people's commune system, many places took advantage of the highly centralized nature of the people's communes to sing unrealistically and forcefully expropriate excessive grain in an attempt to ease the tension between grain supply and demand. Go beyond the limit and take away all the farmers' rations.Especially in the 1970s, due to the long front line of capital construction, the number of employees increased significantly. In the two years from 1970 to 1971, the number of employees increased by 9.83 million, and wage expenditure and grain sales were out of control.Zhou Enlai pointed out in early 1972 that the number of employees in the country exceeded 50 million, wage expenditure exceeded 30 billion yuan, and grain sales exceeded 80 billion catties.These three breakthroughs have brought a series of problems to all aspects of the national economy. If we do not pay attention to solving them, we will make mistakes.Regrettably, the alarm bell sounded by Zhou Enlai on the grain situation failed to attract the attention it deserved.By the second half of 1972, grain sales were getting out of control, and the domestic grain balance evened out, reaching a deficit of 7.5 billion kilograms.

Due to the sharp contradiction between grain production and demand, the tense relationship between supply and demand, and the shortage of grain purchased by the country, in order to alleviate this situation, when arranging the grain purchase plan, the emphasis was placed on the end of the country's needs from top to bottom, which led to repeated crimes of over-purchasing grain in some areas. Mistakes, artificially expanding the area of ​​food shortage in rural areas. In the years after 1971, the development of grain production was slow. In order to ensure the needs of increasing grain sales year by year, rural grain purchases were arranged beyond the limit. Many places confiscated the basic rations of farmers.In those years, the average annual ration of farmers in Sichuan Province was only 150 kilograms of raw grain, which was less than half a year. In 1975, after Guizhou Province completed the procurement task of 5.5 million kilograms of grain, the average grain ration of the agricultural population was only 128 kilograms. By the end of the year, 5 million kilograms of grain had to be sold back, accounting for 91% of the procurement task.

In some places and departments, under the control and manipulation of Jiang Qing and others, they went too far.Any failure to complete the task of purchasing food can be attributed to the fact that the program of "class struggle" has not been grasped well, and there is not a large number of "capitalism".In some places, it is even proposed that "contributions will not be reduced in disaster years" and that the purchase of grain should be "only for the day and night";Unrealistic and blind forced expropriation of excessive grain not only seriously dampens the enthusiasm of farmers and affects the normal development of grain production, but also pushes the majority of farmers into a state of semi-starvation. In some places, it is necessary to replace half a year's ration with melons and vegetables.The living standards of farmers have declined severely.

Today, when we objectively evaluate the unified grain purchase and marketing policy, it is not difficult to find that under the special historical conditions in the early days of liberation, it was to ensure the funds and grain supply needed for my country's industrialization, that is, to ensure the "primitive capital accumulation" of my country's socialist industrialization. It is an effective way to ensure the minimum survival needs of the vast majority of people in our country and prevent social unrest due to unfair property distribution.However, this temporary measure proposed to ensure the state’s purchase of major agricultural products such as grain lasted for 40 years. The remaining agricultural products are collected free of charge, and the other hand is to use the rationing of low-priced agricultural products to ensure the low wages of industrial labor and the low cost of industrial raw materials. The high monopoly profits obtained by the sector are further transformed into new accumulation funds for industrialization through financial channels.In other words, the role of unified purchase and marketing not only guaranteed the purchase of grain, but also became a converter for the accumulation of primitive capital in the initial stage of industrialization in my country.Without this converter, primitive capital accumulation may be difficult to complete, and industrialization may not be able to move forward at a fast pace.However, this role is at the expense of farmers' interests. Its prominent feature is to purchase grain from farmers at a low price that seriously deviates from the law of value, and then supply it to urban residents in the form of welfare.The initial stage of industrialization of this country may be a helpless choice, but with the establishment and development of the industrialization system, it is not advisable for us to continue to implement this practice of suppressing farmers and agriculture.From the analysis of a large amount of data, the slow development of grain production in my country from the end of the 1950s to the end of the 1970s was to a certain extent related to the policy of depriving farmers of their interests and purchasing grain at low prices.Therefore, we say that from the perspective of the state controlling grain sources and controlling the market, the idea of ​​the unified grain purchase and marketing policy is correct. But it does not conform to the law of value and the market mechanism.

Chinese peasants have tightened their belts to ensure food for urban residents and industrialization, but how do we treat peasants? As early as 1956, Comrade Mao Zedong criticized the tendency to "pay one-sided attention to industry and neglect agriculture and light industry".He clearly pointed out that in dealing with the relationship between the state and the peasants, we should not dig the peasants hard like the Soviet Union did, and we could not engage in the "compulsory sales system", and we should "adopt the policy of narrowing the scissors gap and exchanging at or near the same value. "

Mao Zedong tried to find a suitable path between developing industry and protecting the interests of farmers, but the final development led us to take the same path as the former Soviet Union: sacrificing agriculture to protect industry. As early as the beginning of the victory of the October Revolution, Lenin, based on the communist model he envisioned, advocated the abolition of free trade in grain and the adoption of a military surplus grain collection system to realize planned production and planned distribution of the whole society. In the summer of 1918, the entire Soviet Union entered wartime communism with the "surplus grain collection system" as its core.On the one hand, this is based on Lenin's communist vision. On the other hand, due to the war at that time, the country really could not produce enough industrial products to exchange farmers for food.For this reason, the Soviet Union forcibly implemented the collective farm system (from which China's agricultural cooperatives learned from it), which not only regarded agriculture as the main source of export products, and used it to introduce machinery, equipment and technology necessary for industry, but also regarded it as the main source of export products. It is a food supply base for accelerating the development of urban industrial power.However, this mandatory surplus grain collection system seriously damaged the interests of farmers, causing strong social shocks, chaos in industrial and agricultural production, and even caused the death of millions of farmers.

Lenin was greatly shaken ideologically by this. He quickly changed his extreme views in the past, began to restore limited free trade in agricultural products and grains, and vigorously developed agricultural production. However, after Lenin's death, Stalin completely reversed the direction of social development. From the end of the 1920s to the beginning of the 1930s, Stalin led the agricultural socialization of "deprivation of agriculture and development of industry", establishing the state's planned control and distribution of agricultural products. Stalin's economic system of "deprivation of agriculture and development of industry" eventually led to an imbalance in the development of industry and agriculture. Due to the serious lag of agriculture and light industry, the entire national economy has entered a "high input, low output, high consumption, and low efficiency." " dead end.The speed of production development continued to decline, market supply became increasingly tight, and inflation gradually aggravated. On December 25, 1991, the once-prominent superpower, the Soviet Union, was forced to disintegrate. A large part of China's road to agricultural collectivization and the system of unified purchase and marketing of grain was learned from the "big brother" of the Soviet Union.And we still have distinct differences from Big Brother.China's per capita grain output in 1957 was only 290 kilograms, half of the Soviet Union's 1928 production level of 566 kilograms.So while it was possible for the Soviet Union to consider how best to ensure state control over the historical agricultural surplus, the first thing China had to do was find ways to create an agricultural surplus and increase that surplus before it could control the distribution of the surplus material power. In fact, China's unified purchase and marketing of grain has always been based on food shortages.In order to ensure the market supply of grain and to adjust the balance between the regions of the country, the state has to use administrative means to obtain grain from farmers.Although it is different from the Soviet Union's militarized "surplus grain collection system", it also puts farmers in a disadvantageous position because it is not an equivalent exchange in the market.In addition to the hard task of quantity, the price has been at a low level for a long time. In 1953, at the beginning of the introduction of the unified grain purchase and marketing price, the unified purchase price set by the state was generally maintained on the basis of the urban sales price at that time, that is, it was basically a free market price.The country does not earn no losses, and farmers can easily accept it. In 1952, the average price of every 50 kilograms of grain was 6.04 yuan, and in 1953 it was 6.76 yuan, which is basically an equivalent exchange in the market. But in the next few years, the economy developed and the price index generally increased, but the price of grain remained low. In 1957, it fell by 3 cents per 50 kilograms to 6.73 yuan. From 1958 to 1965, the state raised the unified purchase price of grain four times, a total increase of 35%, reaching 9.24 yuan in 1965.At this time, the purchase and sale prices are basically equal.In order to encourage farmers to produce and sell grain, and to solve the situation of low grain production efficiency, the state has implemented a price increase reward method, which increases the price by 10 to 12% for the part that exceeds 50 kilograms per capita.At the same time, the communes and teams sold industrial products as rewards.For every 750 kilograms of grain sold to the state by the production brigade, 15 feet of cotton cloth, 3 cigarettes, and a pair of rubber shoes were rewarded. In some places, cotton wool and sugar were rewarded.However, these incentives were canceled in 1968 and 1970 under the impact of the "Left" trend of thought. In 1966, the average price of grain was adjusted again, raising it to 10.82 yuan per 50 kilograms.But since then, until the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee in 1978, in 12 years, except for a few varieties (buckwheat, red bean, and mung bean), the main varieties such as rice, wheat, and corn have not raised a penny in price. Our farmers have tightened their belts and fed the city people with the hard-earned food, but how do we treat farmers? ——The cheap grain hurts the peasants, we are ashamed of the wrinkles on the peasants’ foreheads, and the straw ropes on the peasants’ waists! Food prices have deviated significantly from their commodity value.By 1976, the average unified purchase price for every 50 kilograms of grain was only 10.75 yuan.A farmer's full load of grain can only be exchanged for a 10-yuan renminbi.According to a survey of 1,296 production teams across the country, the production costs of six major grains have reached an average of 11.6 yuan per 50 kilograms, while selling to the state is only 10.75 yuan, and farmers pay 0.85 yuan instead. According to the national order price, at the foot of Mount Tai, a farmer who grows an acre of wheat can earn only 0.27 yuan in net income. That's still luck.Farmers in Yanbei area of ​​Shanxi need to invest 108.4 yuan to plant an acre of wheat, but the output value is only 105 yuan, a loss of 3.4 yuan.After sweating and collecting grain, farmers still have to pay back. "One mu of wheat and one bottle of wine, a hundred catties of rice can't be exchanged for a pair of shoes." Farmers who face the loess and back to the sky, sow hard sweat, but reap the flowers of poverty. Why don't Chinese peasants look sallow and emaciated, and why don't they hunched over?By 1978, 35.37% of farmers had a yearly income of less than 100 yuan, and 231 counties had a per capita annual income of less than 50 yuan. In many places, farmers were only worth 8 cents a day for work.Most farmers are in a state of poverty and hunger. According to the statistics at the end of 1978, 31.5% of the rural households in the country were overspend households, with a total of 7.47 billion yuan in overspend owed, an average of 139 yuan per household overspend.The commodity purchasing power of each agricultural population was 36.94 yuan in 1957, and it was still only 58.57 yuan in 1977, just enough to weigh some salt and kerosene. Chinese farmers hand over 50 to 60 million tons of grain to the state every year to feed more than 100 million urban residents, but they themselves still go hungry and suffer from poverty. This makes us sad.We said that the unified purchase and marketing of grain played a major role in stabilizing the grain market and ensuring food supply in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China.In the following decades, although the basic stability of the grain market was maintained, it was at the expense of agriculture and farmers as a heavy price.Grain prices were so low that after more than 30 years of liberation, the majority of farmers could not even solve their own food and clothing problems. According to the calculations of some experts, from 1952 to 1986, my country took away 583.2 billion yuan from agriculture due to lowering the price of agricultural products, and 104.4 billion yuan through taxation. 18.5% of value. After 1979, my country paid more attention to the unreasonable low price of grain purchase.In that year, the unified purchase price of grain was increased by 20% to 12.86 yuan, and the price increase for over-purchase was changed from the original unified purchase price plus 30% to the new unified purchase price plus 50%.With this price increase, the income of farmers across the country increased by about 4 billion yuan, but it was apportioned to each farmer, and the income was only increased by 5 yuan. It is conceivable how insignificant this is. In 1985, the unified purchase of grain was changed to the contract order, and the price was calculated according to the "inverted three-seven" ratio, that is, 30% was based on the unified purchase price, and 70% was based on the over-purchased price. Taken together, the proportional purchase price for every 50 kg of medium-sized indica rice was 15.59 yuan. Compared with 1978, the proportion of grain price increase is not small, but there is no need to prove how cheap the price of 15.59 yuan is.A cigarette, a bottle of wine, a piece of cloth, a pair of shoes... everything is worth more than food. The purchase of agricultural products at low prices will inevitably affect the development of agriculture. The ancient feudal emperors also understood the truth that "cheap grain hurts farmers".The main reason why my country's grain production stagnated from the end of the 1950s to 1978 was also affected by the low purchase price of agricultural products.The price of agricultural products is too low. In terms of production, the agricultural labor force accounts for more than 70% of the total social labor force, but the national income created by agriculture only accounts for 30-40% of the total national income. About 10% of income.For this situation, Chairman Mao Zedong has long thought it was wrong.He said, "I don't believe that so many farmers in China have only contributed so little to the country." Under the influence of this artificially low price of agricultural products, there is a big difference in industrial and agricultural labor productivity. According to statistics, two The ratio reached 4.8 to 1.This means that the value of the labor of nearly five farmers is only equivalent to the level of one worker. No wonder Chairman Mao thinks it is wrong.Under this distorted difference in labor productivity, farmers are reduced to the bottom of the society, unable to straighten their backs and hold their heads up.Correspondingly, the difference in living standards between urban and rural residents is 2.7 times. Many rural areas cannot even maintain food and clothing, and have to rely on state relief.This low-price policy of agricultural products has greatly inhibited farmers' enthusiasm for production. Apart from growing enough for their own rations and the "imperial grain" that must be handed over, the majority of farmers are generally unwilling to increase food production.This situation did not change slightly until after the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee.The state not only issued a series of policies to promote the development of agricultural production, but also greatly increased the purchase price of grain to protect the interests of farmers. In 1992, the state issued a protective price of 22 yuan per 50 kilograms of early rice. However, according to estimates, this price was still lower than the grain production cost at that time.Afterwards, in 1994, the state raised the grain purchase price again.48 yuan per 50 kilograms of grain, an increase of 39% over the previous year, which was the largest price increase in the year after liberation. In 1996, the State Council announced that starting from the launch of new grains in 1996, the order prices of wheat, rice, corn, and soybeans would be raised by an average of 0.3 yuan per kilogram, while local governments were allowed to raise prices by 10%.In general, the highest price increase reached 0.44 yuan per kilogram.The central government hopes that areas where conditions permit can continue to implement methods such as extra-price subsidies and linkage of grain, cotton and chemical fertilizers, so as to mobilize farmers' enthusiasm for growing grain.But in fact, this price is still low, and the price of agricultural production materials remains high, and the economic burden on farmers is heavy. Prices rose by 21.7% in 1994 and 14.8% in 1995, of which the cost of agricultural means of production rose by 32.2%, mainly due to the rise in the price of chemical fertilizers, which far exceeded the average price increase. In 1998, the State Council stipulated that the purchase price of grain should be determined by each province based on the level of the previous year. Therefore, the price of grain varies from place to place. It is generally the same as in 1997, and in some places it has dropped slightly.In Jiangxi, the order price of early indica rice is 57 yuan per 50 kg, and the protection price is 50 yuan; in Beijing, the order price of wheat is 76 yuan per 50 kg, and that of corn is 62 yuan; in Yunnan, the order price of early indica rice is 57 yuan per 50 kg, and the price of wheat 70 yuan... From the general situation of the whole country, the general order price of rice is 50-60 yuan per 50 kg, wheat 65-75 yuan, corn 60-70 yuan, and the protection price is about 10-15 yuan lower than the order price.Although the current grain price level cannot be said to have fully reached the level of matching the value, it is already very close to the value level expected by farmers.Grain cultivation has become profitable, and grain production has become the main source of income for farmers.The success of the price reform is the basis and prerequisite for the smooth progress of this grain reform. The highly centralized "big pot of rice" system and the unified purchase policy of "cheap grain hurts farmers" have suppressed China's grain production.In the 26 years from 1953 to 1978, China's grain production has been in a state of stagnation.From 166.83 million tons in 1953 to 304.77 million tons in 1978, the average annual increase was only 5.3 million tons.Per capita possession increased from 284 kg to 318 kg, an increase of only 1.3 kg per year.The slow development of grain production has led to a sharp contradiction between grain supply and demand in China in the past 26 years, which has become the primary problem that plagues China from the central leadership to the common people.According to statistics, during the past 26 years, the domestic food balance has been in deficit for 15 years, and has a slight surplus in only 11 years. After the household production contract system was implemented in rural areas in 1979, agricultural productivity was fully liberated, and the purchase price of grain was increased, which stimulated the enthusiasm of farmers to grow grain. Grain production developed rapidly, and the total grain output reached 20 million tons per year. Incrementally, it reached 407.31 million tons in 1984. In 5 years, more than 100 million tons have been added.This is the most glorious page in the history of China's grain production. As the saying goes: "If you have food in your hands, you don't panic." But Chinese farmers feel panic when they have no food in their hands, and they still panic when they have food in their hands. This is another tragedy in China's agricultural production. In the difficult years of food shortage, the majority of farmers, with a simple patriotic heart, tightened their belts and handed over limited food to the country, ensuring the supply of urban residents and the needs of national construction.And what they got was just a compliment of "uncle farmers are eager to sell 'patriotic grain'". Now, they have a bumper harvest of food, and the people of the whole country are full of food. It is said that this is a great thing, and this is a dream goal. However, only those who eat grain are happy about this great event, while those who grow grain are worried again. "It is difficult to sell grain", a new term was born. In the mid-autumn of 1984, in the courtyard of a grain station in a certain county in Hunan Province, carts full of grain, walking tractors, and carrot baskets were crowded, and hundreds of sweaty farmers circled around several grain station workers, begging for help. Grandpa, thanks to grandma, he almost knelt down, but the staff remained unmoved and insisted that each household can only buy according to the planned allocation, and don't want any extra grains. In a small border county in Xinjiang, 1/4 of the main block is occupied by horses, cows, donkey carts and walking tractors full of grain bags. The twists and turns filled the large yard of the grain station.Some people have been queuing for more than ten hours in a row, and some have been called back by the quality inspectors and re-dried three or four times. The farmers in the county were angry: When the food was scarce, we gave you all our rations, but now that there is more food, you are "showing off your style". Do you still want us to grow food?Impulsive farmers smashed grain stations. Children wait for money to go to school, children wait for money to get married, houses wait for money to be rebuilt, and what is more urgent is that winter production needs money to buy seeds, and next year's production requires money to store chemical fertilizers in winter. Can we blame farmers for being impulsive? Jiangxi, Jiangsu, Jilin, Anhui... For the first time, farmers in China felt the worry of a bumper harvest. We are worried about debts, we are worried about abundance, and farmers are so sad.It took a lot of money to grow food, but now it can only be left to rot at home. Does this field still have seeds? Not the peasants' revenge, but the inevitable result.In the second year, the country's grain sown area fell sharply from 1.69 billion mu to below the warning line, only 1.63 billion mu, the smallest year since the founding of the People's Republic of China. The grain production was greatly reduced, with a total reduction of 28.2 million tons, and the reduction rate also ranked among the lowest after the founding of the People's Republic of China. The first place, surpassing the dreadful 1960.Food became tense all of a sudden, "selling grain" was still raging, and "difficulty buying grain" followed one after another. Only then did many people panic, and only then did they think of the old farmer.Therefore, a working group was organized to go to the countryside, cadres were stationed in the villages, and door-to-door mobilization and work were carried out: planting patriotic land was not honorable, and paying patriotic grain to relieve the country's worries... Once again, reasonable farmers helped the government overcome the food crisis. In the second year, the sown area of ​​grain recovered to 1.66 billion mu, and the total grain output reached 391.51 million tons. In 1989, it jumped to 40 million tons again. When the stomach is full, the face changes. When the farmers, full of joy of a bumper harvest, were carrying carts on their shoulders to send the golden grain to the grain station, they found that the door of the station was closed, and the sign of "no grain harvesting" made them feel cold from head to toe. The specter of "difficulty selling grain" once again enveloped Chinese farmers. This is a more extensive and more stressful grain sale than the one in 1984.Farmers in almost most of the grain-producing areas of the country have been hit by the difficulty of selling grain without exception.According to estimates from nine major grain-producing provinces including Jilin, Anhui, and Hunan, about 4.8 million tons of grain cannot be put into storage, and farmers in Heilongjiang, Hubei, Hebei and other provinces have 6.7 million tons of grain that urgently need to find a way out.On the small roads in the villages and beside the main roads in towns and villages, there are grain carts and livestock everywhere. Some farmers went to all the grain stations in a radius of tens of miles with their carts in order to sell hundreds of kilograms of grain, but they were turned back.In a certain place in Jiangxi Province, in order to sell a bag of grain to see a doctor for her son, a peasant woman knelt on the ground and begged the staff of the grain station. The total grain output of 400 million tons was not much for China, which had a population of 1.14 billion at that time.Obviously, this is the drawback of my country's circulation system.The system is not smooth, the circulation is not smooth, and the state lacks the ability to regulate, so that if there is more grain, it will be "difficult to sell grain", and if there is less grain, it will be "difficult to buy grain". Less, less, more, more" twisting Yangko. The flaw lies in the system, but the disaster falls on the peasants.This year, not only did farmers in the country’s grain-producing areas fail to sell 70% of their surplus grain, but tens of billions of catties of grain that the state should purchase under contracts were not fulfilled, and some were reluctantly accepted by the grain department, but they had no money to buy. To pay, what is given to the peasants is just a white note that does not know when it will be honored. The grain department was unable to purchase, so some grain vendors took the opportunity to buy at a lower price. Every 50 kilograms of grain was only worth 32 to 34 yuan.Converted according to the currency depreciation rate, one kilogram of grain is only equivalent to 1/3 or 1/2 of its value 10 years ago. 1990 was a bumper harvest year in China's agricultural history. However, due to difficulties in selling grain, the per capita net income of farmers not only did not increase, but even declined in many provinces.The bumper harvest in China's rural areas turned out to be nothing.Farmers in Sichuan Province could not sell nearly 5 billion kilograms of grain, and lost 4 to 5 billion yuan in income.Farmers in Heilongjiang Province also have more than one billion kilograms of grain that have not been sold, and their income is less than one billion yuan.Even if they are purchased, many of them are just a piece of IOU. You can't buy salt or beat vinegar. Under such circumstances, some local leaders have become flustered and dizzy. They have been blinded by the illusion of "surplus" grain, and believe that China's grain problem is not less, but more. The planting structure should be adjusted, and what makes money should be planted. , so the acreage of grain planting has been greatly reduced; grain ordering should be cancelled, and farmers should be allowed to digest the excess grain by themselves, so the grain station put up a sign saying "suspended purchase"; They changed their careers to open stores, and the self-employed replaced the grain department to perform the duties of purchasing and selling grain... They never thought that what is difficult to expose in grain sales is not the surplus of grain, but the unsmooth circulation system, so they have not aroused sufficient awareness of the difficulty of this grain sales , As a result, the difficulty of selling grain has intensified, and it has lasted for more than 3 years, 40 months.As a result, when farmers were discouraged and the whole society believed that there was a surplus of food, the food price hike in 1994 broke out across the country. The difficulty in selling grain is naturally accompanied by fluctuations in grain prices. Naturally, this has little impact on urban residents who rely on grain for cheap food, but for those who have to rely on these grains to make a living like a baby son For farmers, it means whether new houses can be built, whether children's school fees can be paid for, and whether agricultural machinery can be purchased.Of course, there will be no major fluctuations in the state's grain order, but the grain order payment cannot even be deducted from seven taxes and eight fees. If farmers really want to make some money, they mainly rely on the part other than the grain order.Therefore, fluctuations in grain prices have a very direct relationship with farmers, and grain prices often fall as soon as the harvest is bumper, and if the price falls, no one wants it, making it difficult to sell grain.Even farmers can't tell whether it is because of the difficulty in selling grain that the price of grain has fallen or because the price of grain has fallen. Anyway, for farmers, misfortunes never come singly.Of course, there are also times when grain is in demand. Although the price of grain will rise at this time, it is not the farmers who really benefit, but the middle circulation link. In 1984, the grain market was oversupplied, and prices fell; in 1985, the supply exceeded demand, and prices rebounded; in 1986 and 1988, the grain balance was basically balanced, but due to regional imbalances and farmers’ reluctance to sell, there was a panic buying of grain in the autumn of both years , the price soared; in 1987, the supply exceeded demand, and the price fell; in 1989, the supply and demand of grain were basically balanced, and the high price in 1988 continued in the first half of the year, but the grain market weakened in the second half of the year and 1990, and the price of grain fell sharply.This time lasted the longest, until June 1993, which lasted for 40 months. The average price of wheat dropped from 1.02 yuan per kilogram to 0.76 yuan, a drop of 25.5%, and the average price of rice fell from 1.47 yuan per kilogram to 0.96 yuan. , a drop of 34.69%, many local food prices fell to the lowest point since the reform, but also the most serious one of the difficulty in selling food. After three and a half years of price weakness, the price of surplus indica rice rose sharply from the second half of 1993, from 0.9 yuan per kilogram in June 1993 to 2.4 yuan per kilogram in August 1995. The increase reached 1.67 times, and corn rose 1.4 times, so that the domestic market price was generally higher than the international purchase price.According to the average price comparison from August to October 1995, wheat was 16.75% higher, corn was 38.15% higher, and rice was 63.5% higher. With the adoption of a series of control measures by the state, food prices were basically stable, but then difficulties in selling food began to appear in some places, and food prices began to enter a sluggish state again.It began to decline at the end of 1995. The average grain price was still 1.6 yuan per kilogram in the first half of the year, and dropped to 1.4 yuan by the end of the year. In 1996, after the state announced to increase the price of ordered grains, the decline in grain prices in the market was not completely curbed, and even accelerated in some places. The price reduction of high-quality rice alone reached 15.7%, and it remained in the doldrums until 1998 before the grain reform was launched.According to the situation in 1996, the price of grain is generally lower than the international market price, such as 35.46% lower for japonica rice, 33.2% lower for wheat, and 27.7% lower for corn. Either more or less, not less or more, if the grain circulation system is not reformed, we will always be in this vicious circle!