Economic Observer Online
May 23, 2012
By Jiang Yunzhang (降蕴彰) 

Translated by Zhu Na

Original article: [Chinese]
 
China’s central government will issue 500 million yuan in special funds this year in order to address serious problems in relation to the storage of agricultural products, the Economic Observer learned from the Ministry of Agriculture.

11 provincial-level regions will be covered by the scheme, with farmers and farming collectives in Hebei, Inner Mongolia, Liaoning, Jilin, Henan, Sichuan, Yunnan, Shannxi, Gansu, Ningxia, Xinjiang and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps all eligible to apply for the subsidies which can be used to help finance storage and basic processing projects.

Much of the initial processing of agricultural products in China is conducted by farmers and cooperatives and it's widely considered that much of the equipment used is obsolete, leading to serious post-production losses and problems with quality.

Experts estimate that between 7 and 11 percent of China's grain, 15 to 20 percent of fruit and potato and as much as a quarter of China's vegetable harvests are lost due to damage incurred after being harvested. These losses are estimated to amount to more than 300 billion yuan.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture, in order to make sure that as many farmers as possible can benefit from the scheme, each farmer will be limited to receiving subsidies for a maximum of two projects and subsidies for farming cooperatives will be limited to five projects.

Three kinds of facilities are eligible to receive government support, potato storage facilities: fruit and vegetable storage facilities and fruit and vegetable drying facilities.