Qi Zheng arrived in Longgu County, in the south-central part of the Hexi Corridor.

Ding Xian of the Strategy Department of Jiagu has already led a team to come over for inspection in advance.

Longgu County is an important barley producing area in Suzhou Province and one of the main barley producing areas in the country.

Barley is one of the ancient grains in China, which has been cultivated for thousands of years. Among the world's cereal crops, barley ranks fourth in total planting area and total production after wheat, rice and corn.

Barley is actually a good thing, the edible and therapeutic value is very good, and the barley kernel porridge is still very delicious.

However, in our country, the cultivation of barley is facing the dilemma of sluggish planting.

No way, in today's market economy, everything is about money.

Barley and wheat are almost identical in terms of nutrition, but barley has a fatal weakness in that it has no gluten in its ingredients – meaning flour cannot be fermented.

The demand for flour alone has already positioned the scale of cultivation of both.

Moreover, the yield per mu of the current barley varieties is about 700 catties, while the wheat can reach about 900 catties.

The straw of barley is relatively soft, has poor resistance to disaster weather, and is easy to lodging, which is easy to cause yield reduction.

As a result, Barley's position in the country is very awkward.

As a food crop, it doesn't have any advantage over wheat, and as a cash crop, well, it's not very economical.

But barley is not without its advantages.

Barley is a typical salinity-tolerant, drought-tolerant, and adaptable cereal crop, and its resource consumption is much lower than that of crops such as corn and wheat. Therefore, in many countries where water resources are scarce, barley cultivation is a common choice.

Domestic barley is generally used for brewing and feeding.

But not all barley can be used to brew beer.

Malting barley is not much different from forage barley in terms of morphology, but there are some special requirements in terms of grain properties and intrinsic quality.

The biggest difference is that the protein content of malting barley should not be too high, because the high content will reduce the solubility of the grains, and the brewed wine is easy to be cloudy and has a short shelf life. Feed barley, on the other hand, requires the highest possible protein content and good palatability.

They are the main raw materials for beer brewing. If hops can still be mainly supplied domestically, the domestic cultivation of malting barley can only be described as "miserable".

At present, 70% of China's malting barley is imported, and the dependence of beer industry on foreign raw materials has reached a new high.

Qingyuan beer is also produced by importing high-quality foreign malting barley.

The shortage of raw materials for domestic malting barley has caused even foreign brewers to rush for gold to worry about it.

"As a food industry, one of the important conditions for healthy development is the supply of raw materials. Ding Xian said, "In China's agricultural product processing industry, the lack of basic raw materials and poor quality are common problems, not limited to the beer industry. The point is that there is too much disconnect between upstream barley cultivation and downstream beer production in the beer industry. ”

Qi Zheng shrugged: "Although domestic beer production has increased rapidly, from the perspective of the whole country, malting barley is just a marginal industry. It can be said that in the golden decade of beer development in the past, the golden period of malting barley development was also missed. ”

Ding Xian said with some concern, "In fact, since 00, international malting barley has entered an upward trend, and the momentum has not diminished so far, due to the reduction of production due to disasters and tight supply." I checked the weather conditions in last year's malting barley supplier countries, and it was not optimistic. Due to high temperatures and drought, barley production has been repeatedly reduced. It can be expected that the import price of malting barley will continue to rise this year. ”

Qi Zheng frowned.

The world's four main suppliers of malting barley are Australia, Canada, France and Denmark. Domestic purchases account for half of the world's total trade.

In the context of the rapid development of China's beer industry for many years, the domestic beer industry can only accept the fact that the price of barley has risen. The increase in the price of imported barley will make the production cost of domestic beer increase sharply.

However, not only can the price of beer not be increased, but in the face of fierce competition, it even has to be discounted. Under the double pressure, more beer brands are having a hard time this year.

"With the shortage of import sources, it is believed that the call for developing the scale of domestic malting barley production and establishing a stable base of high-quality products will become stronger and stronger. Qi Zheng said lightly.

Ding Xian said: "This has become a reality. I have received news that not long ago, the Ministry of Agriculture began to organize experts to prepare a plan for the development of malting barley on the basis of extensive and in-depth investigation and research. But in a short period of time, it is destined to be a mess. ”

"Domestic barley production is basically grown by individual households, and the quality uniformity is relatively poor. Moreover, small varieties of crops often have common problems, small farmer economy, price fluctuations are large, often 'three years grandson, three years grandfather'"

"In the case of unstable output and quality, it will definitely lead to a rush of purchases by enterprises, which will also cause price increases. ”

Qi Zheng waved his hand, "Regardless of them, we must take the lead and reduce the supply chain and market risks of Qingyuan Beer through the model of contract farming." At the same time, the 'high quality and high price' strategy is adopted to help improve the economic efficiency of barley production. ”

In fact, from the comprehensive evaluation results of the malting barley sample collection and testing and evaluation activities carried out by the Ministry of Agriculture, China not only has high-quality malting barley varieties, but also the quality of many malting barley varieties is comparable to that of imported malting barley.

It's just that the quality control of domestic malting barley has always been our weakness.

The entry threshold for domestic malting barley varieties to enter commercial production is low, and the production of small farmers is the mainstay, so it is naturally difficult to promote standardized production procedures and quality control the whole process of pre-production, production and post-production.

Taking advantage of the abundant sunlight and large temperature difference in Suzhou Province, it is one of the goals of Jiagu's trip to control the large-scale cultivation of high-quality malting barley.

"We can say that the timing is just right. Speaking of this, Ding Xian smiled.

"This year, Suzhou Province issued the "Suzhou Province Malting Barley Production Development Plan", on the one hand, through the improvement of varieties and standardized production, to improve the quality of domestic barley, on the other hand, but also to increase the support for barley planting. ”

"In addition, Suzhou Province intends to establish a complete malting barley trading market, with enterprises as the leader, and coordinate the organization and production of the industry......"

Hearing this, Qi Zheng also smiled, "It's really better to come early than to come by chance, this is good news." ”

The slow development of malting barley production is also determined by the characteristics of the malting barley industry.

Strictly speaking, barley malt is really the raw material for beer brewing.

Malting barley needs to be processed into malt through a malting plant before entering the beer processing field, which is a special industry with a long industrial chain.

However, the competitiveness of malt processing enterprises is very weak and does not have enough driving capacity.

Now, by supporting leading enterprises, it is expected to lay a solid foundation for the quality of malting barley.

"However, let's build our own barley production base first, and then I like to stake the land the most......