China food security: agricultural corruption crackdown ‘far-reaching’, state broadcaster says
- Second episode of a four-part documentary series by state broadcaster CCTV addresses corruption, including wrongdoing related to China’s food security
- Episode, which aired on Sunday, highlights 1,011 cases of corruption and 1,367 officials being disciplined in the northernmost Heilongjiang province
A corruption crackdown in the agricultural sector of a key northernmost province has “far-reaching” significance when it comes to ensuring China’s food security, according to a four-part documentary series by state broadcaster CCTV.
A total of 1,011 cases of corruption have been filed and 1,367 officials in Heilongjiang province disciplined as of November, according to the second episode of the series produced by CCTV and China’s anti-corruption agency, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), which aired on Sunday.
The episode also highlighted vanity projects in Guizhou province, as well as renovation in the rural province of Sichuan.
Top officials in several grain bureaus and senior executives at trading companies were found to have abused their positions for profit and endangered food security, the documentary said.
[This is to ensure] reliable quality, safe storage, and the Chinese people’s own food supplies, and has far-reaching and important significance.
“After more than two years of investigations and corrections, the long-standing abuses in the field of grain purchase and sales have been rectified. Comprehensive and strict party governance has been advanced,” said CCDI inspector Liu Yifang.
“[This is to ensure] reliable quality, safe storage and the Chinese people’s own food supplies, and has far-reaching and important significance.”
Heilongjiang is one of China’s top grain producers, but there have been reports of quality issues in its national grain reserves.
A CCDI investigation found that a senior executive of a grain trader did not follow guidelines for buying and selling corn stockpiles at the appropriate times, which caused the reserves to turn mouldy.
The senior executive was also found to have colluded with the director of the county-level grain bureau to deceive the government out of state subsidies worth tens of millions of yuan.
In another case, Zhu Yuwen, former party secretary and director of Heilongjiang’s grain bureau, was suspected of receiving more than 17 million yuan (US$2.4 million) worth of property, with more than half taken during his leadership of the provincial grain bureau, the CCTV report said.
Zhu was said to have accepted millions of yuan from several private grain traders, subsequently putting them on a list of warehouses qualified to hold national reserves, even though they had already been found to have violated regulatory standards.
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“Because of this transaction between power and money, if the qualifications and capabilities of relevant enterprises are not properly reviewed, it will actually affect the implementation of the overall policy of national food security,’ said Sun Bing, a director at the Heilongjiang branch of the CCDI.
China is stepping up efforts to raise its grain self-sufficiency over the next decade by reducing reliance on imports of grains, including wheat, rice, corn and soybeans.
President Xi Jinping has highlighted food security as a national interest, calling on officials to ensure that China can fully nourish its population of 1.4 billion.
