Abstract:Huge grain reserves threaten the grain market stability and national food security.Optimizing the size of grain reserves is the key issue in the current grain policy reform.Many foreign and domestic scholars have done a lot of researches on how to determine the optimal size of grain reserves.The foreign research started from the historical experience method,then evolved to multi-objective programming approach which could reflect the multi-objective feature of grain reserves and the dynamic programming method which allowed the dynamic optimal storage rules according to different market situations.These findings have dramatically pushed forward the related research.In China,scholars generally use the method of deficiency compensation to calculate the optimal grain reserve size and further enrich this method from three perspectives,namely unilateral compensation,bilateral regulation and demand compensation.However,the calculation methods in domestic research are relatively solidified.Besides,they fail to capture the details to meet the needs of strategic adjustment in current grain market.At the critical transforming point of China’s grain policy,it is necessary to draw lessons from foreign research,and expand and deepen the relevant research in the Chinese context.