Building and Developing Ecological Agriculture Should Be Elevated to a National Strategy

Agriculture and rural issues remain an important part of the “13th Five-Year Plan”. Among them, strengthening the capacity for food security is something the state has consistently emphasized. Over the past 11 years, China's grain production has achieved 11 consecutive years of growth, and agricultural development has made tremendous achievements.

However, behind the increase in grain output, some places have pursued higher yields at the expense of the environment. In the future, ecological and environmental protection and the sustainability of the various supporting factors for grain production will place enormous pressure on China's agricultural development, especially grain production.

The “12th Five-Year Plan” also emphasized ecological agriculture, proposing to “improve the modern agricultural industry system and develop high-yield, high-quality, high-efficiency, ecological and safe agriculture”. Today, the contradiction between agricultural production and ecological and environmental protection is becoming increasingly prominent. This reality should alert us even more that the concept of building and developing ecological agriculture should be elevated to a “national strategy”.

⟦NL> At present, China ranks first in the world in the output of quick-acting chemical fertilizers. The annual use of quick-acting chemical fertilizers has reached more than 51 million tons (pure nutrients), accounting for more than 30% of total world consumption, and the amount of fertilizer applied per unit of cultivated land has reached three times the world average. Research results from the Nanjing Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, show that each year in China 1.235 million tons of nitrogen flows through surface water runoff into rivers and lakes, 494,000 tons of nitrogen enters groundwater, and 2.99 million tons of nitrogen enters the atmosphere. This nitrogen causes serious agricultural non-point source pollution, water eutrophication and soil compaction, and at the same time, through denitrification, it also releases greenhouse gases such as nitrous oxide into the atmosphere, causing the greenhouse effect.

China produces about 700 million tons of crop straw each year, and its nutrients are equivalent to 25% of the country's current fertilizer use, but the proportion of straw returned to the field is low. Over time, the various nutrients carried away by straw cannot be returned to farmland soil, leading to a decrease in organic matter content in grain field soil and a serious imbalance in nutrient ratios. In addition, there are also problems such as air pollution caused by burning straw, and water eutrophication and pollution caused by methods such as composting straw in water.

At the same time, China is still a major agricultural country with a severe shortage of water resources, and agricultural water use accounts for 70% of total social water use. At present, farmland irrigation in China still lacks scientific and efficient water-saving irrigation conditions, and a considerable portion of farmland is still irrigated by flood irrigation, which not only wastes precious water resources but also seriously affects the local ecological environment and that of the middle and lower reaches.

For this reason, the state should pay more attention to the pressure and contradictions between grain production and resources and the environment, take carrying out “ecological agriculture construction” as a national strategy, and vigorously develop ecological agriculture. This means ensuring grain production capacity while protecting the ecological environment as much as possible, avoiding as far as possible the ecological and environmental damage caused by agricultural production, and putting agriculture on a path of “ecological, environmentally friendly and sustainable” development.

First, ecological agriculture is environmentally friendly agriculture. That is to say, agricultural development must not be set in opposition to environmental protection, emphasizing only increased grain output while ignoring or disregarding damage to the environment. Instead, while ensuring grain production, every effort should be made to reduce damage to the environment, and it may even be considered appropriate to lower grain output in order to improve marginal benefits and reduce environmental pollution.

Second, ecological agriculture requires support from various factors, and the various production factors supporting agricultural development must be scientific and reasonable. For example, the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides must not be excessive, the efficiency of water resource use must be improved, and it is recommended to adopt crop rotation, intercropping and even fallow systems, among others.

Ecological agriculture is also sustainable. For example, targets should be set to reduce non-point source pollution so that it no longer intensifies; soil fertility and organic matter must not continue to decline; the arable layer must not become increasingly thin; and the groundwater level must not fall year after year. This will put agricultural production onto a sustainable development track.

In short, vigorously developing ecological agriculture requires a series of innovations and reforms in many aspects, including “concepts”, “technology”, “policy” and “measures”, and involves a wide range of areas and many influencing factors. This also requires the state to select major grain-producing provinces for pilot projects first, and after three to five years of pilot projects, comprehensively promote the ecological agriculture development model.

If China's land is compared to a porter on a long journey, then the burden on his shoulders is too heavy now. In order for him to go farther, we should begin to lighten the load for him now. During the “13th Five-Year Plan” period, the state should designate “building and developing ecological agriculture” as the future development strategy for China's agriculture, making future agricultural development more sustainable.