The level of drying mechanization in developed countries is 95%, the national average is 10%, while that in our province is only 4.6%. On May 29, the "Hubei food drying and food security forum" was held in Hanchuan, and the data reported were worrying.

As a big province of agricultural machinery, the comprehensive mechanization level of the main crops in our province has reached 65%, the comprehensive mechanization level of rice and wheat has reached more than 80%, but the key link of mechanized drying has been at a low level.

"Mechanized drying lags far behind tillage, sowing and harvesting, which has become the weakest link restricting the whole mechanization of grain production in our province." PI Shaocheng, deputy director of the Provincial Bureau of agricultural machinery, said that in order to make up for the shortcomings, our province implemented the subsidy policy of opening drying equipment, striving to catch up with and surpass the national average level of grain drying mechanization during the 13th Five Year Plan period.

More losses due to "relying on natural resources"

In mid May, the reporter passed by Yushan Town of Xiangzhou District and found that the township road had been regarded as a "Sun farm" by local farmers, and the golden wheat almost occupied half of the road. Master Sun, a villager, told reporters that it was because of the lack of space for drying that he chose to occupy the road to dry grain. "When drying grain on the road, you are most afraid of rain. If you encounter continuous rainy days, wheat is easy to get moldy. What's more, this kind of drying grain is easy to mix with sand, dust and automobile exhaust. It's polluted, and its appearance is poor."

"For thousands of years, grain has been dried and stored in warehouses, but with the help of the wind and the sun, the process is very complicated, the farmers suffer unbearably, and the efficiency is extremely low." According to Xu Baolin, director of Xiantao Agricultural Machinery Bureau, the "old rules and bad habits" that have lasted for thousands of years must be completely changed.

"I don't need to look at the weather when I harvest grain this summer. I don't need to worry about the rain, no matter how long it is." This year, Wu Guoxing, the person in charge of Hanchuan Xinxing agricultural company, bought 12 drying machines with batch processing capacity of 30 tons. "Under the condition of full load operation, 800 tons of grain can be dried every day." According to reports, Wu Guoxing's newly introduced equipment is the largest grain drying center in the province.

According to the estimation of experts, mildew and germination are caused by poor weather and water drying during grain storage, resulting in direct damage rate as high as 5%. The appearance and taste of rice processing are also seriously affected.

Big Grain Growers fall in love with drying equipment

Now, farmers' professional cooperatives, family farms, large grain growers and other new agricultural business entities are developing rapidly. Their demand for grain drying machinery has increased significantly, activating the grain drying machinery market. At the Forum on grain drying and food security, the heads of dozens of cooperatives and grain processing enterprises showed strong interest in grain drying machinery.