How is autumn grain production changing its approach? People's Daily explains
The mountains are green, the water is green, and the fields are green too. The approach to increasing production is green as well. In the late autumn countryside of the south, the late rice is not yet ripe, still the green of jade, with clusters of white rice flowers hanging on the ears of grain. An old farmer by the roadside smiled happily, “It looks like another bumper harvest year; chemical fertilizers and pesticides have been reduced, yet yields have increased, and the environment is more beautiful too.” The old hands at farming and the new farmers are moving toward modern technology and mechanization. The approach to agricultural development is quietly changing.
“Saved 30 jin of fertilizer, gained 60 jin of grain”
“Three controls and one reduction” achieves green income growth
“I planted 14.5 mu of double-cropping rice, and last year the late rice harvest was 12,000 jin; this year I expect to thresh 16,000 jin!” said Yang Guo'er, a villager from Duibei Village, Lijiang Town, Xingan County, Ji'an City, Jiangxi Province, quite confidently.
An average increase of more than 200 jin per mu, how was this done? Old Yang, 54, chuckled, “First, I chose high-yield varieties. I come to the town's high-yield demonstration plot every day to look around and see which variety is good. I also changed my fertilizing habits. Before, I would broadcast all the fertilizer just a week after the seedlings were transplanted; the seedlings grew fast early on but lacked staying power later. Now the fertilizer is applied in split applications and delayed; the first time only 60% is applied, and the rest is applied in two more rounds depending on the situation. The benefit is that the amount of fertilizer used is reduced, ineffective tillering is controlled, and the fertilizer use efficiency is improved.”
Old Yang did some calculations: for one mu of land, nitrogen fertilizer alone was applied more than ten jin less, saving more than ten yuan in costs; pesticide applications were reduced from 5—6 times to 3 times, saving thirty to forty yuan in costs. “What we are mainly promoting this year is the ‘three controls and one reduction’ technology, namely controlling soil acidification, controlling the decline in soil fertility, controlling the amount of chemical fertilizer, and reducing the amount of pesticide, to achieve green yield increases,” said Yao Yigen, director of the Xingan County Agricultural Technology Extension Center.
To help farmers accept the new technology of reducing fertilizer and pesticide more quickly, agricultural technicians thought of many methods. In the high-yield demonstration plot in Lijiang Town, experimental signs stand in rows. Plots with conventional fertilization, high-yield fertilization, large-formula fertilization, and blank (no fertilization) are placed side by side, and the rice growth is clear at a glance, with nearby farmers coming by from time to time to learn. Deng Chunyun, a technician at the Lijiang Town Agricultural Technology Extension Station, said: “This is the place nearby farmers love to come to most.”
Wei Shilian, a large grain grower from Changgang Village, Jinchuan Town, Xingan County, also tasted the sweetness of green yield increases. “I farm more than 1,700 mu, with 1,000 mu of late rice. Because the plots are large, increasing yield by 10 jin per mu is not easy, but this year I expect to increase yield by 60 jin per mu!”
Wei Shilian said this was entirely thanks to science and technology and agricultural mechanization. Innovative green production technology let him experience that production and ecology can develop in harmony. “Under the guidance of the agricultural department, I started plowing the land in winter, which greatly reduced the base number of insect eggs and lowered the incidence of pests and diseases. The most crucial thing is applying the tillering fertilizer late; calculated for one season, this can save 30 jin of chemical fertilizer per mu.”
In recent years, Jiangxi has carried out demonstration activities for improving quality and efficiency around high-yield grain production and green income growth. In 2015, Jiangxi Province established 436 ten-thousand-mu high-yield grain demonstration plots, promoted “three controls” fertilization technology on 7 million mu, and the province's rice mechanization level reached 67.1%, with the main promoted technologies basically covering every county. Yu Donghui, deputy director of the Grain and Oil Crops Bureau of the Jiangxi Provincial Department of Agriculture, said: “The technologies we promote can achieve reduced pesticide and chemical fertilizer use, increased grain income, and no decline in soil fertility. Coupled with promoting mechanized farming throughout the entire process, the cost per mu can also be reduced by one to two hundred yuan a year.”
“Nine services” and the integration of “five machines”
Making grain farming easy for farmers
It was the critical period for late rice grain filling, yet Leng Weiguo, a farmer from Wangjiadi Village, Longguangqiao Town, Heshan District, Yiyang City, Hunan Province, rarely went to the fields to busy himself, spending most of his time at the Huimin Agricultural Machinery Cooperative maintaining farm machinery.
Why so relaxed? It turned out that Leng Weiguo signed a contract this year with the Huimin Agricultural Machinery Cooperative, under which the cooperative was responsible for full-process “nine services” and guaranteed a minimum yield of 750 jin for early rice and 800 jin for late rice, with the surplus split 30-70 with him. This “nine services” package covered the entire process from seedling raising and transplanting to pest and disease control, harvesting, drying, and sales.
“I used to farm the land myself. After signing a contract with the cooperative, someone comes to the door and farms the land well, which is more cost-effective than doing it myself. After entrusting it, costs dropped by 140 yuan, the yield per mu increased by 60 jin over last year, and efficiency rose by 80 yuan,” Leng Weiguo said. “We have signed socialized service area contracts of more than 10,000 mu with large grain growers and ordinary farmers. Farmers can either choose the all-inclusive 9-service package or select one or several services a la carte.” In the view of Huang Weimin, head of the cooperative, the “nine services” brought rice production “two lows and three highs”: socialized services keep the idle rate of farm machinery low, and unified procurement of agricultural materials lowers planting costs; improved seed seedling raising, green prevention and control, and standardized production raise rice quality. According to his calculations, if existing farm machinery and equipment served only owned or transferred land, the idle rate would be high, with a utilization rate of less than 30%, and the depreciation cost of farm machinery and facilities would reach 120 yuan per mu, whereas after carrying out “nine services,” the converted depreciation cost of farm machinery is only 70 yuan per mu.
Because of unified planting varieties and because the “nine services” standardized production, the cooperative has an accurate grasp of the rice maturity period and harvest time, and the thousand-grain weight and plumpness of the rice reach extremely high standards, so the selling price of similar rice is 0.05 yuan per jin higher. This year the cooperative adopted plant protection technology that reduces pesticide and increases efficiency. In addition to using spectral insect-killing lamps, vetiver grass was planted along the field edges. Originally 3—4 pesticide applications were needed, but now only 2 are applied.
Zhou Zhikui, director of the Grain and Oil Division of the Hunan Provincial Agricultural Commission, said that although land transfer in Hunan Province is advancing quickly, there is still quite a lot of land unsuitable for transfer or that farmers are unwilling to transfer. The rapidly developing socialized service system has effectively solved the problem of “who will farm the land.” According to statistics, various socialized service organizations in Hunan Province are developing rapidly, and the area under unified control of rice pests and diseases has exceeded 16 million mu. Since the beginning of this year, apart from drought and flood disasters in some areas, major grain crops have achieved stable and increased yields, and the total grain output for the whole year is expected to show a pattern of stable increase.
In Jiangxi, there are also many such socialized service organizations. Similar to Hunan's “nine services,” they are called the integration of “five machines” here, namely machine plowing, machine transplanting, machine plant protection, machine harvesting, and machine drying (machine drying). What impressed the reporter was that some professional seed companies have also begun to transform, providing farmers with one-stop supply chain management, that is, full-process mechanized services.
Longer industrial chain, stronger brand awareness
Seeking to maximize the benefits of grain farming
Changing the agricultural approach is not only a change in production methods, but also a change in management methods. Unlike the traditional “old hands,” the new type of farmers no longer keep their eyes only on the returns from the land, but actively seek to extend the industrial chain and pursue the maximization of grain farming benefits.
“If you sell the rice directly, according to this year's minimum purchase price, it is at most 135 yuan/100 jin; if it is processed into milled rice and then sold, 100 jin of rice can produce 65 jin of milled rice, and at the price of ordinary milled rice, it can sell for at least 200 yuan.” Zhang Junjie, a 33-year-old skilled farmer from Fengcheng City, Jiangxi Province, said he plans to open a small rice processing factory while expanding the scale of planting.
Also a post-80s large grain grower, Lei Yingguo, a farmer from Leifang Village, Xiushi Town, Fengcheng City, has already turned the idea into reality. At his base, a modern storage facility with a capacity of 11,000 tons has been built, also equipped with large dryers, so nearby farmers can sell their grain directly to him, and the rice can be dried and stored directly, saving time and effort. As early as 3 years ago, Lei Yingguo registered Jiangxi Lili Xiang Ecological Agriculture Co., Ltd., processing products such as ecological health rice and organic rice. “After a 3-year conversion period, we already have more than 1,000 mu of rice that has passed organic certification, selling for more than 60 yuan per jin. There are also more than 2,000 mu of high-quality rice, whose market price is also higher than ordinary milled rice,” Lei Yingguo told the reporter.
The transformation from traditional agriculture to modern agriculture is not only being explored by new-type farmers like Zhang Junjie and Lei Yingguo. Fengcheng City, Jiangxi Province, is actively seeking to leap from a major grain county to a strong grain county. “First, we work hard on ‘expanding total volume, deep processing, and extending the chain,’ introducing and cultivating several large grain production and processing enterprises, and building the province's first full industrial chain for converting rice into biological food, from planting rice to milled rice and then to rice syrup, rice protein peptides, and so on, squeezing every link dry. In addition, we build a brand around selenium-enriched elements, making every effort to develop Fengcheng's selenium-enriched agriculture, especially cultivating ‘selenium-enriched rice’ as Fengcheng's calling card,” introduced Lu Kai from the Fengcheng Municipal Party Committee Office.
Zheng Min, director of the Grain and Oil Crops Bureau of the Jiangxi Provincial Department of Agriculture, said that to do a good job in grain production under the new situation, it is necessary to adhere to the integration of the three industries, upgrade production-oriented agriculture into efficient agriculture integrating the primary, secondary, and tertiary industries, and increase the value-added links of the industry. “Only in this way can we achieve increased farmers' income and sustainable agricultural development, and better safeguard food security.”