What is the agricultural trend under the "four advances and four retreats"?

 

With the penetration of many factors such as the development of science and technology, the refinement of the social division of labor, the acceleration of population mobility, and changes in consumer demand, Chinese agriculture is undergoing multi-directional and multi-level structural changes. The shock effects brought by differentiation, fission, aggregation and reconstruction are increasingly profoundly affecting the entire agricultural macro-system. Paying close attention to this phenomenon is of great significance for grasping agricultural trends and adjusting strategies in time.

I. Manifestations

1. Cultivated-land agriculture advances, grassland agriculture retreats. For a long time, under the influence of the concept of taking grain as the key link, cultivated-land agriculture has prevailed. Agricultural production has relied heavily on grain production, and grains are the main body of food. In our country, grains account for more than half of food consumption, while the figure is 28% for the United States and 27% for Australia. At the same time, meat food is mainly grain-consuming pork, supplemented by grass-eating beef and mutton. The ratio of beef and mutton to pork output in our country is about 1:5, while in the United States the ratio of the two is about 6:5. This special economic structure and consumption habit have given our country a deep-rooted "grain-pig agriculture." Grain-pig agriculture causes excessive pig raising, and feed grain consumes a large amount of grain. Pig feed squeezes out human food, and grain production is naturally overwhelmed. Grain-pig agriculture also cuts off the natural link between grass and livestock. In developed countries such as Australia and New Zealand, more than 90% of livestock products are converted from grass, while in our country it is only 6%-8%. This feeding model, based mainly on grain or synthetic feed, leads to more livestock diseases, high feeding costs, and low product quality. Such a production system, while still pursuing high quality and high returns, will inevitably produce crazy behavior like adding melamine to milk.

In contrast, grassland agriculture has been declining. Our country is the world's second-largest country in grassland resources, with 400 million hectares of natural grassland, second only to Australia. Since the founding of the People's Republic of China, our grassland area has continuously decreased and its quality has continuously declined, with widespread overloading and overgrazing, and serious problems of grassland degradation, desertification and salinization. In the early 1980s, degraded grassland in our country accounted for 1/3 of the total grassland area. By the mid-1990s, half of the grassland area in 12 northern provinces and regions had degraded. By the late 1990s, 90% of the grasslands in the traditional pastoral areas of the west and the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau had degraded to varying degrees, of which moderately degraded or worse grassland already accounted for half. At present, grassland degradation is increasing at a rate of 2 million hectares per year, and the ecological environment of grasslands is facing a very severe situation. The "grain complex" born of fear of hunger has disrupted the two major agricultural systems of "grass" and "cultivation."

2. Livestock and poultry feed advances, human rations retreat. In recent years, feed grain consumption in our country has maintained a relatively rapid growth trend. The consumption of large amounts of feed grain is mainly for pig and poultry farming, as well as aquaculture and some grass-eating livestock farming. According to estimates, from 1978 to 2010, the average annual growth rate of feed grain consumption in our country was 5.8%. In recent years the pace has accelerated, with annual feed grain consumption reaching more than 300 million tons. From the perspective of consumed varieties, corn accounts for about 60% of total feed grain consumption; soybean meal consumption accounts for 17.7%; rice accounts for about 8.6%; wheat accounts for about 7.4%; tubers and other miscellaneous grains account for 6.1%. In terms of proportions, in 2010 corn, soybeans, rice, wheat and tubers used as feed grain accounted for 69.1%, 238.4%, 9.6%, 13% and 29.2% of their respective annual output. As people's income levels rise and dietary structure improves, demand for animal products such as meat, eggs and milk will continue to grow, and demand for feed grain will remain strong. Improper farming methods have also artificially increased demand for feed grain. In some areas of our country, dairy cows are generally raised like pigs, not mainly fed on forage grass and crop straw, but relying heavily on concentrated feed to maintain milk production. In some cases, dependence on concentrated feed is as high as more than 80%, farming costs cannot be reduced, and the incidence of disease in dairy cows is abnormally high. Experts believe that if the current concentrate-to-roughage ratio of 6:4 were adjusted to 3:7, the life cycle and reproductive capacity of dairy cows would be greatly improved. The lack of high-quality roughage is a bottleneck restricting dairy farming. The rapid growth of feed grain has become one of the main factors in the rigid growth of grain demand. In contrast, since the mid-1990s, the ration consumption of urban and rural residents in our country has shown a declining trend. In 1994, our country's ration demand reached its historical peak of 280.64 million tons. In 2010, ration demand had fallen to 206.97 million tons, with an average annual decrease of 2.6%. The "ecological food chain" arranged by nature is being artificially broken, and the phenomenon of herbivores competing with people for grain is becoming increasingly intense.

3. Demand for non-staple foods advances, demand for staple grains retreats. With urban and rural economic development, the living standards of urban and rural residents have continuously improved, and the food consumption structure has also continuously upgraded. Ration demand has gradually declined, with more pursuit of nutritious, healthy and diversified grain. Consumption of non-staple foods such as meat, eggs, milk, melons, fruits and vegetables has gradually increased, forming a substitute for rations. Relevant surveys show that the consumption ratio of grain, vegetables and meat has changed from 8:1:1 in the past to 4:3:3 now. As for meat, eggs and milk, from 2002 to 2012, our country's total output of meat, eggs, milk and aquatic products increased from 140 million tons to 210 million tons, an increase of 48.6%, with an average annual growth rate of 4%. Among this, total meat output was 82.21 million tons, an increase of 32%; poultry eggs were 28.61 million tons, an increase of 16%; milk was 37.44 million tons, an increase of 188%; and aquatic products were 59.06 million tons, an increase of 49%. From the perspective of the output composition of meat, eggs, milk and aquatic products, meat fell from 45% of total output to 40%, poultry eggs fell from 18% of total output to 14%, milk rose from 9% of total output to 18%, and aquatic products remained unchanged at 28%. In 2013, our country's per capita meat consumption was 61.5 kg, dairy products 27 kg, and aquatic products more than 26 kg. The traditional concept of staple and non-staple foods is developing toward the trend of "the guest taking over the host, with staple and non-staple reversed."

⟦NL> 4. The consumer group advances, the production group retreats. With the acceleration of urbanization, large numbers of farmers have moved to cities. By the end of 2014, our country had 749 million urban permanent residents and 630 million rural permanent residents. The urban population had surpassed the rural population, breaking China's traditional population structure of thousands of years. At present, 260 million farmers across the country work in cities as migrant workers. By 2020, our country's urbanization rate should reach 60%, and more than 10 million rural people should be transferred each year.

After farmers enter cities, they change from grain producers to grain consumers, and their lifestyle also changes greatly. Ration consumption decreases, but consumption of meat, eggs, milk and aquatic products increases substantially. Farmers need to eat in the countryside, and they also need to eat after entering cities, but the way of eating is different. If at home, vegetables can be grown and chickens raised at the edges of fields, in front of and behind houses, basically solving the problem of eating. After entering the city, none of this is available, and everything must be bought. In the process of buying, the consumption structure aligns with that of the city. In ration consumption, urban residents are lower than farmers. Farmers consume about 120 kg of finished grain per capita, while urban residents consume about 80 kg. But for other agricultural products, urban residents are clearly higher than farmers. Fresh vegetables are 28% higher, edible vegetable oil is 24% higher, meat including pork, beef and mutton together is about 56% higher for urban residents than farmers, poultry is 136% higher, poultry eggs are 87% higher, and aquatic products are more than twice as high. These all require grain production and conversion, indirectly increasing grain consumption. For every one percentage point increase in urbanization, grain consumption demand increases by more than 10 billion jin, and cultivated land decreases by about 6.5 million mu. Those who grow grain become those who eat grain, and those who eat grain become those who eat meat, bringing even more severe challenges to agricultural production.

II. Impacts

⟦NL> 1. Destruction of the ecological environment. The prevalence of cultivated-land agriculture has caused deterioration of the ecological environment. In some places, long-term unreasonable development and utilization of grasslands has led to continuous grassland degradation, and sandstorms, desertification and soil erosion have intensified. Since the 1950s, our country has reclaimed about 20 million hectares of grassland, of which nearly 50% has been abandoned and become bare land or sandy land. The country's soil erosion area has reached 3.57 million square kilometers, accounting for 37.2% of the total land area. The annual total soil erosion is about 4.52 billion tons, accounting for one-fifth of the global total, mainly in the Yangtze River and Yellow River basins, averaging more than 3,400 tons per square kilometer. The Loess Plateau is the area with the most severe soil erosion in China, exceeding 30,000 tons. The rate of land desertification in the source areas of the Yangtze River and Yellow River has accelerated, becoming one of the prominent ecological problems in the source areas, mainly manifested as land sandification, salinization and secondary bare soil formation. Desertified land in the source areas has reached 19,000 square kilometers and is expanding at a rate of 130,000 hectares per year. Climate change has intensified the contradiction between water supply and demand in our country. In recent years, water resources in northern China have decreased significantly, with the Yellow River, Huai River, Hai River and Liao River areas being the most notable; total water resources decreased by 12%, among which surface water resources in the Hai River area decreased by 41% and total water resources decreased by 25%. Although southern China is relatively rich in water resources, and river runoff and total water resources have increased in recent years, due to abnormal changes in rainfall patterns and high temperatures, regional water shortages have also appeared in recent years.

2. Structural imbalance in agriculture. Our country's feed grain consumption has reached more than 300 million tons, and most of the 600 million tons of total grain output is eaten by animals, while it is still growing at about 10% per year. The rapid growth of feed grain demand has posed a major challenge to the traditional agricultural model. It is impossible to meet the rigid growth demand for feed grain solely by increasing traditional grain output. The key lies in saving feed grain and vigorously developing non-grain feed, that is, making full use of crop straw and other agricultural by-products and forage resources in agricultural production to reduce the pressure of livestock farming on feed grain demand. For grass-eating livestock, most of what is needed is plant vegetative matter rather than grain. Developing non-grain feed can meet the development needs of grass-eating livestock. If this transformation of the food consumption structure can be realized and a large amount of non-ration consumption can be saved, this will be a major contribution to the balance of grain supply and demand in our country.