How exactly is strong-gluten wheat forged?

Many people in Henan do not know that before Li Keqiang took charge of Henan, the wheat we grew could only be made into steamed buns and noodles; after that, wheat not only became a calling card of Henan's agricultural innovation, but also linked up a “soft gold” industrial chain.

Developing agriculture with an industrial mindset: because the returns from selling grain were low, Li Keqiang advocated deep processing on the spot, building a series of leading agricultural product processing enterprises and turning Henan, a “granary,” into a “kitchen” with higher returns.

This combination of measures was praised by the people of Henan as the “wheat economy.” Some commented that he brought a “new industrial breeze” to Henan, where farming consciousness was deeply rooted, and opened a new journey of industrialization, urbanization and the advancement of agricultural modernization for Henan, a major agricultural province.

Background

Ma Wanjie, the just-retired former president of the Henan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, had held leadership positions at the provincial academy since the 1990s. He clearly remembers: in 1998, Li Keqiang came to work in Henan and immediately went deep into rural areas to conduct several investigations.

The background at the time was that Henan was a major wheat-producing province, with an annual output of more than 20 billion kilograms. Ma Wanjie said that at the time Henan's wheat planting area was the largest in the country. But because the varieties were uniform and the quality was low, on the one hand Henan's wheat was hard to sell and could only be made into steamed buns and noodles; on the other hand, as consumption upgraded, we had to import large quantities of strong-gluten wheat and weak-gluten wheat for making cakes, biscuits and bread.

“After Comrade Keqiang discovered this problem, he put forward the concept of the ‘wheat economy.’” Ma Wanjie recalled that Li Keqiang pointed out: as a major wheat-producing province, Henan should consider wheat throughout its economic activities in a comprehensive way; specifically, it should solve the quality problem at the source of scientific research, adjust the structure in production, and ensure reasonable and priced purchasing.

⟦NL> “Comrade Keqiang consulted a large number of agricultural experts, including experts from Beijing and Henan, and held symposiums; I personally presided over several symposiums.” said Zhang Dawei, deputy director of the Standing Committee of the Henan Provincial People's Congress, who once served as director of the Henan Provincial Development and Reform Commission and vice governor of the Henan Provincial Government: he said that developing high-quality wheat would both solve the problem of increasing farmers' income and solve the problem of raw materials for developing deep food processing. Henan is a major agricultural province, and wheat is the most important crop in the province's agricultural economy because it is a wintering crop with irreplaceability; it ripens twice a year and is also the main staple food of urban and rural people, so Henan's crop farming must make a big effort with wheat.

Action

He first “forged” himself into a wheat expert

“Comrade Keqiang asked very detailed questions about wheat breeding techniques and variety characteristics, and remembered them in great detail, including which varieties and what percentage of protein content; he could say them off the top of his head. I did not expect him to study this work so meticulously.” Zhang Dawei told a reporter from Dahe Daily.

Ma Wanjie recalled that under Li Keqiang's leadership, Henan overcame weak links in wheat planting and solved problems in the breeding and cultivation techniques for strong-gluten and weak-gluten wheat. In 2000, according to Li Keqiang's instructions, scientific research and innovation in wheat breeding were strengthened. In 2001, strong-gluten and weak-gluten varieties such as Zhengmai 9023 and Zhengmai 004 appeared one after another.

Vice Governor Zhang Weining recalled that at the time, in the production and operation of high-quality wheat, various forms of industrialized operation models had also taken shape in different places, and his pragmatic style and his true colors of caring for the farmer masses could be seen from this.

“In order to give farmers planting high-quality special-purpose wheat a reassurance of stable purchasing and increased returns, when studying the ‘Tenth Five-Year’ plan, Li Keqiang clearly proposed that Henan's agriculture should build two major bases——production and processing bases for high-quality special-purpose wheat and high-quality livestock and poultry products.” said Hu Wuyue, director of the Provincial Bureau of Statistics, who once served as director of the Comprehensive Division of the Provincial Development and Reform Commission.

On June 4, 2003, Li Keqiang (front center), then secretary of the Henan Provincial Party Committee, braved the intense heat to go deep into Hebi City for investigation and research. This is Li Keqiang in a wheat field in Qilibao Village, Qiaomeng Township, Qi County, asking local farmers about the wheat harvest.

Transformation

Developing agriculture with an industrial mindset

“When the Central Plains are ripe, the world has enough,” but growing good wheat still could not solve the old problems of agriculture's way out and farmers getting rich, so Li Keqiang, while in charge of Henan, proposed the new idea of “developing agriculture with an industrial mindset.”

According to the China News Service feature article “Interpreting Li Keqiang,” at a 2013 State Council meeting, Li Keqiang also talked about an experience of his in Henan. He said that as the person in charge of Henan Province he went to Canada to study modern agriculture, and he noticed that when the other side introduced the situation they never simply said “agriculture,” but always insisted on using a complete phrase, “agricultural industry.”

“At the time I found it very strange to hear it; why call it agricultural industry? But after looking around I understood: they really were developing agriculture with an industrial approach.” Li Keqiang recalled his surprise at the time, “a local food research institute in one region actually studied, by category, the requirements of different Chinese foods such as yangchun noodles, hand-rolled noodles and char siu buns for flour, and fed this information back to farmers and seed merchants so that they could accurately grasp market demand.”

Zhang Dawei told a reporter from Dahe Daily that when compiling the “Tenth Five-Year” plan, Li Keqiang proposed “developing agriculture with an industrial mindset,” and the “Outline of the Plan for Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in All Respects in Henan Province,” formulated under his leadership, proposed: accelerating industrialization and urbanization and advancing agricultural modernization are the basic ways for our province to build a moderately prosperous society in all respects, and are also the only way to fundamentally solve the “three rural issues.” This is also the origin of the “coordination of the three transformations” that people in Henan still talk about today.

It was precisely based on this guiding ideology that, because the returns from selling grain were low, he advocated deep processing on the spot, building a series of leading agricultural product processing enterprises and turning Henan, a “granary,” into a “kitchen” with higher returns.