Corn is the second largest crop in China. Corn has the attributes of food, feed and industrial raw materials, and its basic position in the national economy is self-evident. In the late 1990s, China's wheat achieved a major breakthrough in machine harvesting, realizing the entire mechanization of the main links of ploughing and broadcasting. People have invariably focused on the mechanization of corn, and to achieve the full mechanization of corn production, machine harvest has become a bottleneck for development.
In 1998, I organized a private national corn mechanization harvesting site meeting in Xuchang, Henan Province, and I wanted to use this as an opportunity to organize the mechanized harvesting of corn from south to north. Although there are more than 10 models of corn harvesters participating in the on-site meeting, there is no enterprise to dare to participate in cross-regional operations. By 2007, the Ministry of Agriculture held the first official ministerial meeting in Shandong. After 10 years, the mechanized harvest of corn did not achieve our intended purpose. In 2008, the national mechanized harvesting level of corn only reached 10.6%, while the level of wheat harvested in the same period has reached 82%. In contrast, the level of corn harvest is still at a very low level.

Maize mechanized harvesting and mechanized harvesting of wheat, compared with the two, in terms of policy support, administrative promotion and technology development, corn harvest has obviously received more support from governments at all levels. For example, policy support, corn harvesters are included in the national and many provinces purchase subsidy catalogue, enjoying 30% to 50% of the purchase subsidies. Another example is the administrative promotion. The site for corn harvesting will be carried out every year, and the provinces and provinces will do more, and the number and scale of them will far exceed the wheat harvest. For example, technical development support, corn harvesters have been established in the northern provinces, in the same period, included in the cross-plan, the "10th Five-Year" tackling plan, the "Eleventh Five-Year" support plan, the Agricultural Transfer Fund project and the National Economic and Trade Commission plan, etc. Supporting efforts can be described as unprecedented, while wheat harvesting related projects are difficult to predict.

From a dynamic point of view, we can see that the mechanization of corn harvesting is much slower than that of wheat. We often say that the current development of corn mechanization is very similar to the development of wheat mechanization in the 1990s. The annual increase of wheat harvesters is generally between 40,000 and 50,000. In the same period, there were only a few thousand in the early stage of corn, and only more than 10,000 units in the past two years. The two are far apart.

From a multi-faceted comparison, we can think that in the mechanization of wheat and corn harvesting, the policy, capital and administrative strength of corn is much higher than that of wheat. In fact, the mechanization of wheat harvesting presents a real pull of market demand, the driving force of marketization is more sufficient, and the imprint of marketization is more obvious.

For the influencing factors of the development of agricultural mechanization, we generally analyze and study several mainstream factors such as policy, economy and nature. In the process of mechanized harvesting and development of corn, in addition to these factors that we call mainstream, I think that compared with the development of mechanized harvesting of wheat, there are still some non-mainstream influence factors, which have been plaguing the development of mechanized harvesting of corn. This article attempts to carry out some shallow analysis to arouse the attention of the industry and solve it together.

Promote the selection of models, improper over-spreading

In the process of promoting corn harvesters, some provinces and regions have poured into dozens of products at once, and it is said that there are more than 50 kinds. These machines were introduced to the market, the models were messy, and the farmers were at a loss. Almost all of these models are not interchangeable, and training is difficult to carry out. A province or a region cannot select a suitable leading model. It is difficult to say that it is not a mistake of the agricultural machinery management and promotion department, and it is unable to take the initiative to select a good type for farmers.

During the promotion process, the geese are plucked and layered.

Some of them are so bad that they make the company miserable. Many places have been selected from the provincial level to the county level, the appraisal department has finished, the promotion department has also engaged in various forms, on-site meetings, performance testing and so on. It is necessary to charge for the selection type, the fees are excessive, and the fees are high, and the company can not afford to sin. There are also layers of service fees and promotion fees. Originally it should be "who advocates who pays the bill", and the results are all taken up by the company. In the end, companies have to add these costs to the price. For example, the piggyback model with an average of about 10,000 yuan per line in the early stage has already achieved a large price leap, and the marketing cost of enterprises has surged. A large part of the subsidy funds are “digested” in the price increase. The only way to pay is the purchaser of the corn harvester.

“selling and picking thin” in the sales process

Some distribution departments are driven by their own interests, regardless of the interests of farmers, and only consider their own interests to maximize profits and charges. When promoting and recommending products, we strongly recommend large and top models to users. These models are generally expensive and the dealers' profits are relatively high. Because farmers are in a position of information asymmetry in the purchase of corn harvesters, and the competent authorities often stand on the side of the interests of the distribution department, it is often difficult for farmers to choose a model with reasonable cost performance, and their own interests are subject to certain damage.

Trade barriers hinder the promotion of advanced models

In some areas, during the process of corn harvesting, local protectionism is prevalent, and some technical and trade restrictions are adopted to protect local enterprises and local products. For example, it requires localization of products and different subsidy standards for products in different regions. The result of this often protects the backwardness, and the last "unlucky" is the peasant. They can only choose products within the circle defined by some agricultural machinery departments.

Did not give full play to the orientation of subsidy work

The agricultural machinery subsidy work did not achieve the goal of real solution. In some areas, the use of agricultural machinery subsidy funds, subsidies have no priority, lack of planning, purpose and orientation, no focus, until the end. Instead of focusing on the weak links in the region, we will use good steel on the cutting edge, but strive to spend money. There is no focus on the development of corn harvesting machine. Therefore, there is no subsidy for the corn harvester market that was launched in the second half of the year, so there is no way to increase the subsidy quota, tilt to the corn harvester, and so on. This has greatly reduced the orientation of subsidy funds and affected the development of mechanization of corn harvest.

All kinds of non-mainstream influencing factors have different degrees of existence in practice and in different regions. Although they do not or will not directly cause the failure of the state's mechanization support policy for corn harvesting, they have largely hindered the development of corn harvest mechanization. The second thing should be given a considerable degree of attention, so that it can return to a healthy development track. It is believed that solving these non-mainstream factors will help promote the sound and rapid development of corn harvest mechanization.