Considerate services offered to reduce grain losses

Cobs are piled up at the Grain Service Center in Liuqiao town. [Photo by Liu Lei for chinadaily.com.cn]

Qihe county in Dezhou, East China's Shandong province, has in recent years offered considerate services to reduce grain losses.

At the Grain Service Center in Liuqiao town, golden yellow corn cobs are piled up like a mountain. "These cobs will be threshed after two to three days of air drying, then be baked, and stored in intelligent granaries," said Zhao Jing from Yiyuan Lyuji Agriculture Group Co.

Last year, the group invested 500 million yuan ($70.01 million) to establish 16 Grain Service Centers in all the 15 towns in Qihe and this year, the 16 centers are open to the agricultural businesses and farms and offer services such as purchase, baking, and storage.

A person checks the data uploaded from the sensors in intelligent granaries. [Photo by Liu Lei for chinadaily.com.cn]

Since October this year, the centers have purchased 40,000 metric tons of cobs and helped local businesses and farmers bake and store over 5,000 tons.

Zhao introduced that the intelligent granaries at the 16 centers are equipped with multiple sensors to monitor the humidity, temperature, moisture, and pests in real time to ensure grain losses are lower than 0.9 percent.

The large-scale mechanical harvesting has reduced losses of wheat and cobs in Qihe to 0.79 percent and 1.41 percent respectively, 1.2 and 2 percentage points lower than national standards.

Qihe has also set up a team of 150 experts of agricultural science and technology to offer regular field management training, leading to the 85 percent grain emergence rate around the county. (Edited by Gong Jun)