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The impact of metal silos on rice storage and storage losses in China

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Abstract

Reducing food loss and waste has recently become an important aspect of ensuring China’s national food security. Because of the importance of household grain storage, the government of China implemented the Scientific Grain Storage Project (SGSP) to encourage farmers to adopt advanced storage facilities (mainly metal silos for rice storage). Based on survey data of 1159 households in 21 provinces, we first analysed the factors that affect farmers’ adoption of metal silos and then used Propensity Score Matching method to assess the impact of metal silos on household rice storage and storage losses. The number of years of schooling, religious beliefs of household decision makers, family size, annual net income, Cooperative membership, planting area, and awareness of grain saving practices were significantly correlated with household decisions on the adoption of metal silos. Metal silos significantly extended the duration of rice storage by households by 18 days, reduced rice storage losses by 43% from 1.6% to 0.7% of output, and protected rice from rodent damage during storage. Promoting the adoption of metal silos by farmers is important for ensuring China’s food security. The adoption of metal silos can increase the supply of rice by 626,800 t per year; save 86,600 ha of land, 29,400 t of fertilizer, and 0.82 billion m3 of water; reduce carbon emissions by 232,200 t, and meet the food consumption needs of 1.39 million people per year. The government should continue the SGSP scheme and encourage farmers to adopt advanced storage facilities.

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Notes

  1. National Food and Strategic Reserves Administration. 2009. “Guidance on the implementation of reduce post-harvest loss project” (in Chinese), http://www.lswz.gov.cn/html/ywpd/hykj/2018-06/11/content_210676.shtml.

  2. Metal silos are only one major type of facility promoted by the Scientific Grain Storage Project. Other facilities include steel framework warehouses and metal mesh warehouses. However, compared to metal silos, the other facilities are used less frequently. In the Scientific Grain Storage Project, more than 90% of farmers adopt metal silos. These facilities are often airtight and hermetic.

  3. National Food and Strategic Reserves Administration. 2009. “Measures for the on farm scientific grain storage” (in Chinese), http://www.gov.cn/gzdt/2009-06/24/content_1348773.htm.

  4. Nearest neighbour matching matches a subject from the control group to a subject in the treatment group based on the closest propensity score. In kernel matching, each subject in the treatment group is matched to weighted averages of individuals with similar propensity scores, and greater weight is given to people with closer scores. Radius matching uses a tolerance level of the maximum propensity score distance between a subject in the treatment group and all individuals in the control group who are within that distance (Caliendo & Kopeinig, 2008).

  5. This survey covered wheat, rice, maize, soybean, rapeseed, groundnut, potato and sweet potato. We selected all rice samples.

  6. Data source: National Bureau of Statistics (CN), http://data.stats.gov.cn/.

  7. Data from China’s main rice-producing areas (four provinces and eight counties) show that the rice loss rate at storage stage were 1.21% (Lu et al., 2019).

  8. Our survey results show that the farmers believed that rodent damage is the major cause of storage loss. On average, each farmer lost 17.02 kg of rice during storage; the loss of 10.40 kg was due to rodent damage, the loss of 3.63 kg was due to insects or pests, and the loss of 3.00 kg was caused by mildew. Hence, in this study, we particularly focused on the impact of metal silos on rodent damage.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the financial support from the special project on non-profit grain industry research, “Research on Investigation and Assessment Techniques for Post-Harvest Grain Loss and Waste” programme, supported by the National Food and Strategic Reserves Administration and National Natural Science Foundation of China. We thank the district authorities in the study area and all those who were involved in the data collection, analysis and report compilation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Price Cost Investigation, National Development and Reform Commission, No. 59 Yue Tan South Street, Beijing, 100045, China

    Yi Luo

  2. Institute of Economics, Hunan Academy of Social Sciences, Deya Village, Changsha, 410003, Hunan, China

    Dong Huang

  3. College of Economics and Management, China Agricultural University, No. 17 Qing Hua East Rd, Beijing, 100083, China

    Laping Wu & Junfeng Zhu

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Correspondence to Laping Wu.

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Luo, Y., Huang, D., Wu, L. et al. The impact of metal silos on rice storage and storage losses in China. Food Sec. 14, 81–92 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12571-021-01194-4

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