New breakthrough in defending high-level grain production; transforming the mode and adjusting the structure become this year's main theme
——Written on the occasion of the 2015 grain output hitting a new record
It was late rice harvest season in Xiaokeng Valley, Huangjia Village, Qidu Township, Yongfeng County, Jiangxi Province, where two harvesters shuttled back and forth, golden waves of rice falling and being drawn in, and plump grains filling the granary. “You can imagine, this will be another bumper harvest year.” Villager Huang Jin'gen wore a satisfied expression.
1242.87 billion jin! On December 8, the National Bureau of Statistics announced the 2015 national grain output, with grain production hitting a new record and adding a brilliant stroke to the “12th Five-Year Plan” agricultural and rural economic development.
Transforming the mode and adjusting the structure become this year's main line of agricultural development
Grain has had consecutive bumper harvests, warehouses and granaries are full, and market supply is sufficient, but corn has accumulated in some areas, and the production structure has reached a point where it must be adjusted.
For a large country with a population of 1.4 billion, the significance of a bumper grain harvest is self-evident. However, after many consecutive years of increased production, we have also fully recognized that the string of resource utilization is being pulled tighter and tighter, and the carrying capacity of the ecological environment is getting closer and closer to its limit.
At the National Agricultural Work Conference held at the end of last year, facing the real challenges in development, Minister of Agriculture Han Changfu said: “With consecutive years of grain production increases, excessive resource consumption, and damage to the ecological environment, agricultural development faces two ‘tightening bands’: ecological and environmental constraints and resource constraints. This makes the traditional development model of competing for resources, competing for inputs, and competing for the ecological environment unsustainable. We must take the path of resource-saving, ecologically friendly sustainable agricultural development.”
In fact, today's bumper harvest is indeed different from a bumper harvest in the usual sense. It is instead a green bumper harvest that is based on resource endowments, industrial foundations, and market conditions, and places equal emphasis on quantity, quality, and efficiency.
In mid-October in Jilin Province, corn had basically been harvested, and the fields in Yushu City and Nong'an County were covered with thick corn stalks waiting to be crushed and fully deep-plowed back into the field, with some already beginning to “start work.” Because crushing and returning stalks to the field used to be costly, about 60%-95% of organic matter such as stalks in the Northeast black soil region was burned.
This shift this year is fundamentally thanks to agricultural machinery operation subsidies of 90-100 yuan per mu. According to Wen Yesheng, head of the Zhongyi Agricultural Machinery Cooperative in Helong Town, Nong'an County, this year the central government made a special allocation of 500 million yuan to support 17 major grain-producing counties in the Northeast black soil region in carrying out pilot projects for black land protection and utilization. His cooperative plans to sign a contract with the government for deep plowing and stalk return on 5,000 mu of land, and he will receive a subsidy of 100 yuan per mu. In addition, Wen Yesheng also calculated the overall account: “The benefits may not be obvious in recent years, but once the land is improved in the future, it will all become high-yield fields, and the benefits will be shared evenly, benefiting both farmers and the land.”
A different approach wins the harvest
⟦NL> From high-yield creation to green yield-increase model research, the Ministry of Agriculture has attached increasing importance to exploring the sustainable development of natural resources. Through one increase after another, they tell people that production and ecology can advance together.
In February this year, the Ministry of Agriculture issued the “Opinions on Vigorously Carrying Out Research on Green Grain Yield-Increase Models,” emphasizing the need to raise land output rate, raise labor productivity, and raise input utilization rate, launching a battle across national agriculture to promote the concept of green yield increase.
Rice is China's largest staple grain. The method of matching good seeds with good practices and integrating agricultural machinery with agronomy ran through the entire research process and was implemented in every link of model innovation, injecting new momentum into grain yield increases.
“Without unified technical guidance, the yield difference is huge.” Wang Guisan, a villager from Chunhuashan Village, Chunhua Town, Changsha County, Hunan Province, said while standing in his own rice field, “Before, it was eight or nine hundred jin per mu; now it can yield 1,300 jin. With guidance from all sides, increasing yield is not difficult now.” Through unified application of good seeds, unified green pest and disease prevention and control, unified scientific and technological training, and unified pest and disease trapping and killing, scattered grain growers clenched into a fist and connected into patches, promoting the transformation of grain production toward seeking grain from science and technology.
To achieve green yield increases, it is necessary not only to improve efficiency but also to reduce consumption. This year is the first year that the Ministry of Agriculture has vigorously promoted the action of zero growth in pesticide use. The proposed goal of “one control, two reductions, three basics” demonstrates China's determination to take the path of sustainable agricultural development.
“Reducing pesticides does not mean not spraying pesticides, but rather improving efficiency and eliminating excessive spraying, arbitrary spraying, and waste of pesticides.” Zeng Yande, director of the Planting Industry Management Department of the Ministry of Agriculture, said, “Through methods such as correct selection, scientific application, and equipment upgrading, we should reduce the portion of pesticides that does not play a role in pest and disease control. This will not affect grain output and will also save costs, increase income, improve quality, and increase efficiency.”
From competing for inputs to competing for science and technology, Li Qingshuang, chairman of the Weimin Grain and Cotton Planting Cooperative in Wucheng County, Dezhou, Shandong, has tasted the sweetness of “change.”
In his comparison field for controlling corn borers, the rate of damaged plants in the plot controlled with Trichogramma was half that of the plot controlled with pesticides, while the cost of the two control methods was almost the same. This single technique alone can reduce pesticide use by an average of 1 kg per mu. On his more than 1,000 mu of land, through comprehensive green yield-increase technologies such as soil testing and formula fertilization and deep loosening with no-till and multi-layer fertilization, he achieved a 10% increase in output while reducing chemical fertilizer use by 10%.
“Sickle Bend
” leads the adjustment of planting structure
In August this year, the Ministry of Agriculture proposed the “Sickle Bend” Region Corn Structure Adjustment Plan. A professional term from steel processing vividly described the key areas for China's corn structure adjustment. The “Sickle Bend” region includes the cold Northeast region, the northern farming-pastoral ecotone, the windy and sandy arid region of the Northwest, the area along the Taihang Mountains, and the rocky desertification area of the Southwest. Unfold a map of China, and it presents a curved distribution from the Northeast to the Northwest. This is a typical dryland farming area and an advantageous area for livestock development, with a fragile ecological environment, yet total corn planting area accounts for 1/3 of the country's total.
Different from a “universal preference system,” the Plan clearly proposes different guiding opinions for different regions. This kind of “teaching according to aptitude” and “prescribing the right medicine” is direct and persuasive.
“With this year's beans, just weigh them in your hand and you know they are heavy; measured yield is 20 jin more per mu.” said Cui Xiangmin, a farmer in Bei'an City, Heilongjiang Province. This is all thanks to “grain-soybean rotation.” Bei'an City belongs to the fourth accumulated temperature zone, and long-term corn planting easily triggers “northern leaf blight.” Rotating with soybeans can not only alleviate pests and diseases but also increase the yields of both, but soybeans have low economic returns. Based on this, the Ministry of Agriculture implemented a “grain-soybean rotation” project in the Northeast this year, with a subsidy of 150 yuan per mu. “The farmers' enthusiasm has been mobilized, the planting structure is more scientific, and of course output has risen.” said Wang Deyou, deputy director of the Bei'an City Agriculture Bureau.
“Grain-soybean rotation,” “grain-to-forage,” and “fallow treatment” - these high-frequency terms in the Plan all constantly highlight that in this optimization of the planting structure, tapping new potential in grain production is one aspect, and improving the current quality of China's cultivated land and restoring ecological levels is also important content.
Wang Chengyun, a farmer in Shanyin County, Shanxi Province, is one of the local 36,000 households growing silage corn. He said: “When the corn had just matured, I sold it to the cooperative at 360 yuan per ton. It was very much in demand; I was harvesting while counting money.” As a pilot area for the Ministry of Agriculture's grain-to-forage development of herbivorous livestock, the traditional concept here of “planting for grain and using stalks as feed” is gradually changing, and the new idea of “planting for breeding” is becoming popular.
Spring sowing and autumn harvest, time moves forward; machinery roars, science and technology develop; from high consumption to treasuring resources, ideas progress. Amid these changes, farmers' desire for increased production and income remains consistent, residents' demand for healthy food remains consistent, and the state's painstaking efforts for grain security under heaven remain consistent. A bumper harvest is a great plan for the happiness of the people.