Grassland agriculture development is steadily advancing
Storing grain in the land and storing grain in grass is an important way to adjust the structure and transform the mode of agriculture. However, as China's urbanization process continues to accelerate, people's dietary structure is also undergoing a shift——grain consumption is declining, and the consumption of animal-based foods is growing. This has driven the rapid development of the livestock industry, intensified the demand gap for forage and feed, and created a new threat to food security.
At the same time, because of the long-term heavy use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides in China's agricultural production, the pollution of soil, water sources and agricultural products, as well as the imbalance and degradation of soil nutrients, have seriously threatened the sustained productivity and stability of agricultural ecosystems, and traditional tillage agriculture is facing enormous challenges.
Improving the productivity of the crop-forage-livestock system is the way out for solving China's food security problem. However, China's agricultural production environment is complex and diverse, production conditions vary greatly from region to region, and the structures of crop and forage planting and livestock breeding differ widely. Therefore, establishing grassland agriculture and sustainable land use models adapted to the characteristics of each region is an inevitable choice for the development of modern grassland agriculture.
In agricultural areas, a grassland agriculture development model led by large-scale, benefit-oriented operations should be established.
First, adjust the grain-economic crop dual planting structure into a grain-economic crop-forage triple planting structure, and change the straw-based livestock husbandry model in agricultural areas into a high-efficiency livestock husbandry model based on a high-quality, diversified forage and feed structure. Second, increase the proportion of herbivorous animals, reduce the proportion of livestock that compete with people for grain, improve the conversion efficiency of high-quality forage, support this with excellent livestock breeds, and improve livestock husbandry benefits by optimizing planting, processing and breeding methods. Third, relying on new-type rural cooperative organizations, expand the scale of land production units through land transfer, establish large-scale high-quality forage and feed production bases such as alfalfa and silage corn under a “base + farmers” model, realize the integration of planting, production, processing and sales, and improve the systemic benefits of grassland livestock husbandry in agricultural areas. Fourth, introduce grass into fields, adopt methods such as land rotation, intercropping, relay intercropping and multiple cropping, implement circular rotation agriculture, maintain a good soil ecological environment, and improve the comprehensive productivity and sustainability of the land system.
In the farming-pastoral ecotone, establish a grassland agriculture development model combining planting and breeding.
The farming-pastoral ecotone has a special natural resource endowment, with crop farming and livestock husbandry running in parallel in the same region and complementing each other. The region's special climatic conditions determine that the benefits of grain agriculture are far lower than those of vegetative agriculture. The area of oats, whole-plant silage corn and alfalfa has been continuously expanding, and the region is becoming a key area for the development of China's grass industry.
In this region, vigorous efforts should be made to develop grassland agriculture led by vegetative agriculture, vigorously develop cultivated grassland, change the production mode of semi-housed feeding and supplementary feeding into a fully housed livestock husbandry mode, and improve the conversion benefits of the forage-livestock system. At the same time, build this region into a forage guarantee base for pastoral areas, a fattening base for livestock in pastoral areas, and a base for absorbing and converting straw from agricultural areas, so as to reduce pressure on grasslands in pastoral areas and meet the nutritional needs of livestock.
In pastoral areas, establish a green, efficient and environmentally friendly ecological livestock husbandry development model.
Pastoral areas have harsh climatic conditions and a low level of livestock husbandry production, so ecology and environmental protection should be the premise for the development of grassland livestock husbandry in this region. For natural grassland, improve forage yield and quality and enhance forage supply capacity through optimized grazing utilization systems, such as rotational grazing, joint-household grazing, resting grazing during the green-up period, and grazing bans, as well as adaptive grazing and grassland management, and no-till improvement of degraded natural grassland, thus resolving the contradiction between ecological protection, forage supply and livestock husbandry development.
On the premise of restoring grassland ecology, vigorously develop green, distinctive and brand-oriented ecological livestock husbandry. Through livestock breed improvement and short-term fattening, carry out standardized production with green, natural meat and dairy processing specifications, upgrade the processing technology level of traditional livestock products, improve quality and added value, gradually perfect the overall function of the grassland livestock husbandry production system, promote the shift from quantity growth to quality-and-benefit growth, and drive grassland livestock husbandry toward a green, efficient and environmentally friendly production mode, achieving a win-win outcome for grassland ecological protection and economic growth in pastoral areas.
(The author Shi Shangli is a professor at Gansu Agricultural University and an expert in the grass-field rotation position of the National Forage Industry Technology System; Cao Wenxia is an associate professor at Gansu Agricultural University; Zhang Yingjun is a professor at China Agricultural University and chief scientist of the National Forage Industry Technology System)