CHINESE COMPLAINTS REVEAL GRAIN LOSSES DURING SHIPMENT AND STORAGE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80-00809A000700150221-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: R
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 13, 2011
• Sequence Number: 221
• Publication Date: November 30, 1953
• Content Type: REPORT

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/09/14: CIA-RDP80-00809A000700150221-8
CLASSIFICATION RESTRICTED
CENTRALSINTE LIGENCE AGENCY
INFORMATION FROM
FOREIGN DOCUMENTS OR RADIO BROADCASTS
COUNTRY China
SUBJECT Economic - Agriculture, grain, transport
HOW
PUBLISHED Daily newspapers
WHERE
PUBLISHED Tientsin, Peiping
DATE
PUBLISHED 7 Aug 1953
LANGUAGE Chinese
REPORT
CD NO.
DATE OF
INFORMATION 1953
DATE DIST. 3 p Nov 1953
NO. OF PAGES 4
SUPPLEMENT TO
REPORT NO.
THIS IS UNEVALUATED INFORMATION
CHINESE CCMPLAINfS REVEAL GRAIN LOSSES
DURING SHIPMENT AND STORAGE
Lummary: Great losses of grain have occurred through spoilage
while being transported and through improper storage in granaries.
Those entrusted with shipments have failed to clean the cars and pre-
vent contamination from foreign matter and failed to provide tarpau-
lins to protect the grain from the rain. This carelessness reveals
a lack of sense of responsibility on the part of both shippers and
railway officials]
GRAIN SPOILED DURING SHIPPING AND STORAGE -- Tientsin, Ta Kung Pao, 7 Aug 53
Frequently, grain that is transported by the railways becomes wet and moldy.
Those in charge should feel more responsibility and should improve their methods
of protecting grain from the rain. Recently, many cases have occurred in which
grain became soaked, while being transported by the railways, because of rents in
the protecting tarpaulins or cracks in the bodies of the cars. Also, grain has
been loaded on cars that were not cleaned after having carried chemicals, kero-
sene, or asphalt, so that the grain became contaminated with the flavor of kero-
sene or chemicals.
There are many examples of such losses. On 22 May 1953, ^ine cars of rice
from Chang-sha, Hunan, and one car of bean cakes from Shuan -chle Hsien Sung
kian were shi ed to an-ch - .
ehe
cars and unrepaired rents in the to e08iee of ^ 220,000 cat ties became
soaked with rain and mildewed, and some 310, 000catttiesoferice deteriorted to
the degree of becoming odorous. As for the bean cakes, 887 cakes were mildewed
and 1,580 cakes spoiled.
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In June 195 ' ng-men granary of the Peiping Grain Company re-
ceived a carloadof flour fr
m S
h
o
ooc
ow containin 1364 bf
g,ags, o which 1,000 bags were soaked by ra in. The Hsi- ien-men
car-
load of flour from Wu-hsi p granary received a loaded with 55 bags 64
bags were rain soaked. In addition, has pt o which ch i,1ng
wet grain has been transported to Peiping
from such places as Chen-chiang Hsien, and Ch'ang-thou in Kiangsu, Pang-fou in
Anhwei, and Honan, Sui-yuan, and Shansi provinces.
The largest amount of such spoilage occurred when 28 carloads of grain
were transported from Soochow to Peiping; the grain in 26 cars was soaked and
spoiled. Up to 22 July 1953, the Peiping Municipal Grain Company, had re-
ceived a total of 12,580 bags of flour soaked with rain, 350 bags of rice simi-
larly soaked, and nine bags of rice that had molded and spoiled.
This loss is very great, yet many men in charge assume an attitude of irre-
sponsibility. For example, on 21 June a carload of maize
being transported from Sui-hua Hsien in Heilingkiang Province to the Chiao-tso
mining district. On the way, 1,880 catties of maize were spoiled by mildew and
10,390 catties deteriorated to the point of having a bad odor. When Chang Hsi-
tang, the Chiao-tso mining district Grain Company's Transportation Manager,
went to the Chiao-tso Railway Station to discuss measures that could be taken
to lessen such losses, the man in the station responsible for shipments said,
"'We are concerned only with making a good transportation record."
On 3 April 1953, a carload of rice was shipped from Ning-
ming Hsien in Kwangsi Province to Tang- n in Hope Province. The car had
not been cleaned after having been used to transport asphalt and more than
17,000 catties of rice became contaminated with the odor of asphalt. The
some sort of thing happened in shipments to Shanghai, Tientsin, Tsingtao, Sian,
Chang-thou, and Suchow.
Such large losses occur so frequently in so many different places that
the railway men in charge have become accustomed to the condition and fail to
give it serious attention. The units in charge of shipping grain have the mis-
taken idea that since the railway is responsible for transport the shippers
themselves need have no concern as to whether the cars are tit to carry grain,
have protection against rain, or are properly loaded.
The following measures should be taken so that property of the nation and
of the people will no longer suffer losses:
1. Increased emphasis must be given to the instruction of cadres, height-
ening their sense of responsibility for serving the people and their ethical
standards as to care of public property.
2. To insure the cleaning of the cars, the protection of grain from rain,
and the proper loading, the leaders of the basic units should receive repeated
personal instruction through inspections and helpful directions.
3. The railway station entrusted with shipping should fulfill the chipping
requirements by adequately preparing the tarpaulins, matting, and straw. The
cars should be inspected in advance to see if they are clean, have cracks, and
if the tarpaulins have holes or are limited in quantity. The cars should be re-
paired and disinfected before being used.
4. A gondola car should be loaded with a ridge in the center (like a fish's
spine) and supports should be used so that the tarpaulin also has a ridge in the
center and the rain can run down the sides without wetting the grain.
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 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/09/14: CIA-RDP80-00809A000700150221-8
The grain office in Ko-tse Special Administrative District made anIinspec-
tion of granaries after th, rains. Most of them leaked. Of the grain stored
in Granary No 2 in Ko-tse Hsien, 25,000 catties molded, spoiled, or became
wormy. Some of the grain had sprouts 3 or 4 inches long. In Ling-i Hsien and
Te ao Hsien two granaries of the people's government collapsed, with loss of
more than 310,000 catties of grain. In Hsin-chuang, a suburb of Tsinan, over
95 percent of the grain piled up in the open was soaked by rain, with the result
that 734 sacks of grain showed varying degrees of deterioration, molding and
sprouting.
Failure to investigate whether or not those entrusted with its transpor-
tation have the proper equipment to protect grain from rain has resulted in
much grain getting soaked in transit. For example, the Hui-min Special Admin-
istrative District Grain Office transported kaoliang to the Hu-hsi Special
Administrative District and 13,200 catties deteriorated in quality and began
to sprout from having become wet. The Grain Office of the Ko-'tse Special Dis-
trict transported soybeans to Tsinan and 600 bags became soaked in transit.
Everywhere the cooperatives in their buying and selling for others have
cases of grain spoilage. For example, in such places as Yu-ts'ai Hsien, Fu-
shan Hsien and T'eng Hsien incomplete statistics indicate that 330,000 catties
of bean cakes and soybeans became moldy. In 15 cooperatives of Shih-p'ing
Hsien and Yang-ku Hsien, 34,807 catties of stored grain became moldy. In the
Ch'ai-r,