Adjusting the Agricultural Structure, Promoting Development Through Transformation
The 2015 No. 1 document proposed deepening the adjustment of the agricultural structure, carrying out pilot projects for converting grain to feed and for integrated planting and breeding models, and promoting the coordinated development of the three-part planting structure of grain, cash crops and forage. The just-issued "Opinions" once again clearly set out the goals and measures for adjusting the agricultural structure. It can be said that behind this year's summer grain harvest achieving a “twelfth consecutive increase” is the main thread of our country's agriculture closely centering on “stabilizing grain, increasing income and adjusting the structure, improving quality, raising efficiency and transforming the model.”
Our country has a vast territory and diverse types of agricultural natural resources. According to the resource characteristics and market conditions of each region, rationally allocating natural resources and production factors, determining development directions in light of local conditions, guiding industrial division of labor and cooperation, and optimizing the layout of agricultural productivity are important elements of agricultural structure adjustment. Agricultural structure adjustment is directly affected by the market and resources and is closely linked with the agricultural operation system, production system and industrial system; it is a complex and intricate system with great spatiotemporal variation. Therefore, advancing agricultural structure adjustment is a complex systematic project and a gradual process.
⟦NL> Building circular agriculture that integrates planting and breeding, guided by ecological protection
The structural allocation of the planting and breeding industries is the basic framework of the agricultural industrial structure, and optimizing the structure of the planting and breeding industries is the main task of transforming the agricultural development model. At present, the multi-industry allocation ratio in our country's agriculture, with farming and animal husbandry as the main body, is unreasonable; the output value ratio of farming, forestry, animal husbandry and fishery is about 13:1:8:2, while the agricultural and livestock structure in the United States remains roughly balanced, with a ratio of crop farming to animal husbandry of 1:1.
Because our country has long had an imbalance between planting and breeding, resource utilization has not formed a chain, and as the quantity of agricultural product output has continued to increase, agricultural waste has surged accordingly. Livestock and poultry manure from large-scale farms in the south cannot be absorbed on site, causing non-point source pollution; in the northeast region, after the corn harvest, straw cannot be fully utilized as a resource, and burning has become a disaster. It can be said that the faster an isolated industry develops, the greater the potential threat to the ecological environment; once a problem arises in one link of an industry, its regional environment is damaged. Therefore, to solve at the source the balance between developing production and protecting ecology, and to develop agricultural production guided by ecological construction, it is necessary to apply the way of thinking of traditional Chinese medicine that “to treat the symptoms, first treat the root,” promote circular agriculture models for the planting and breeding industries, build a circular agriculture system, turn waste into resources, make resources beneficial, ease the pressure on resources, ecology and the environment, and increase agricultural returns.
Different regions of our country also have typical circular agriculture models integrating planting and breeding. Based on the resource and environmental characteristics, industrial foundations and planting and breeding habits of each place, with resource utilization conservation, clean production processes and waste resource utilization as the main thread, fully using the characteristics of agricultural organisms and respecting the laws of natural ecology, scientific layout is carried out for planted crops and bred livestock species, and inter-industry circular chains and ecological circular agriculture systems at different levels are built. At the same time, agricultural microorganisms are a necessary intermediate link in establishing circular planting and breeding industries, and are also an important pathway for decomposing agricultural waste. In structural adjustment, the unique function of agricultural microorganisms in decomposing agricultural waste and organic matter in the environment should be fully brought into play.
Adjusting cropping systems with the goal of sustainable use of cultivated land resources
Crop rotation and changing crops are the basic means of keeping soil fertility ever renewed, and are also the essence of our country's millennia-old traditional agricultural planting methods. A reasonable rotation system, fallow, and intercropping, mixed cropping and relay cropping multiple-cropping systems can both achieve the combination of using and nourishing the land and guarantee the sustainable use of cultivated land resources, and can also achieve “storing grain in the soil” and ensure the coordinated stability of the ecological environment.
However, with the development of modern agriculture, the improvement of agricultural technology levels and the drive of economic benefits, regional single-crop planting structures have become increasingly common, and continuous cropping areas have continued to expand. For example, in recent years the northeast region has planted corn over large areas year after year, while the area planted to the former superior crop soybean has continued to shrink, breaking the original corn—soybean rotation balance. In 2013, the corn planting area in the three northeastern provinces already exceeded 160 million mu, 3.6 times that of soybean, and corn output reached 75 million tons, more than 15 times that of soybean. While we transport large amounts of corn out of the black soil, we have ignored the soil fertilization and cultivated land protection provided by soybean nitrogen fixation, causing problems such as the decline of soil organic matter and black soil degradation, for which huge restoration costs and ecological costs must be paid. At the same time, the single product brought by single-crop planting not only increases the inventory pressure of a single variety, but also increases market risk.
A cropping system for restoring soil fertility must proceed from the overall situation and the long term, and guarantee the quantity, quality and ecological security of cultivated land resources. The "Opinions" point out that the focus should be on promoting corn/soybean (peanut) rotation in the northeast region, promoting corn/peanut (soybean) intercropping and relay cropping in the Huang-Huai-Hai region, promoting double-season rice—green manure or rice—rapeseed planting in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, promoting corn/soybean intercropping and relay cropping in the southwest region, and promoting corn/potato (soybean) rotation in the northwest region.
Optimizing the grain and feed structure, guided by meeting changes in consumer demand
In recent years, animal husbandry has developed rapidly, among which herbivorous animal husbandry has grown most notably. From 1990 to 2013, pork output grew at an average annual rate of 4.0%, while beef and mutton output grew at average annual rates of 8.0% and 6.2%, and the share of beef and mutton in meat output rose from 8.1% to 12.7%. At present, our country's imports of corn and soybean meal have surged, the supply-demand gap for feed grain has widened, and the insufficient supply of feed grain has intensified the threat to national food security. If the internal structure of agriculture is not adjusted in a timely way and herbivorous animal husbandry is not developed faster, a situation in which livestock and poultry compete with people for grain will inevitably arise.
The foundation for developing herbivorous animal husbandry lies in forage. With the coordinated development of “grain, cash crops, forage and livestock” as the main thread, adjusting the variety structure and layout changes within crop production and within animal husbandry forms a “grain and forage combined” type of agricultural structure. Replacing part of the feed grain with high-quality forage helps guarantee people's ration needs, and also promotes the development of the forage industry, enhances the production capacity of dairy cows, beef cattle and mutton sheep, increases the supply of herbivorous livestock products and ensures the quality and safety of herbivorous livestock products. Furthermore, agricultural land use methods such as planting forage on low-yield fields and sloping farmland, and forage-field rotation, can make full use of resources such as light, heat, water and soil, improve resource use efficiency, and also fertilize the soil and promote the sustainable use of cultivated land.
The key regions for developing herbivorous animal husbandry are traditional pastoral areas and farming-pastoral ecotones. This region is rich in forage, feed crops and straw resources. Through “exchanging forage (straw) for meat,” the pressure on feed grain production can be effectively eased, and the structure and layout of our country's agricultural production can also be made more coordinated, making the supply-demand structure of our country's agricultural products more reasonable, thereby promoting the optimization of our country's agricultural structure and the development of modern agriculture.