Animal husbandry pursues the "three guarantees" through "three transformations," optimizing regional layout to secure supply
By estimate, for some time to come China will consume at least 230 million kg of meat, 80 million kg of poultry eggs and 100 million kg of milk every day, putting considerable pressure on China's animal husbandry sector to secure supply. At the same time, the rapid development of animal husbandry has brought worsening pollution and ecological degradation in some areas. Affected by rising production costs, declining comparative returns, and the risks of disease and market fluctuations, livestock and poultry farming has become more volatile. Faced with these pressures, animal husbandry needs to accelerate the transformation of its development mode and seek change through development.
At present, China's pig prices are on a continuous upward trend. According to monitoring by the Ministry of Agriculture, live pig prices at 480 rural markets nationwide have risen for 20 consecutive weeks. The pig inventory in 4,000 pig-farming villages nationwide has declined month-on-month for 9 consecutive months, the lowest level since 2008. Currently, the pressure on China's agriculture to secure supply, protect the ecology and ensure returns is growing, and this is especially true for animal husbandry. The challenges facing the transformation and upgrading of animal husbandry are increasingly complex, urgently requiring continuous innovation and the development of modern animal husbandry through measures such as optimizing regional layout, advancing the integration of crop and livestock farming, and building whole-industry chains.
Securing supply: optimizing regional layout
From "eating meat only on holidays" to an abundantly full "meat platter," this is the real experience of ordinary people. From a household sideline to a major industry accounting for one third of agriculture, this is the true reflection of animal husbandry's own development. The latest data from the Ministry of Agriculture show that China's animal husbandry annual output value exceeds 2.9 trillion yuan, per capita meat availability is nearly 64 kg, and currently income directly from livestock and poultry farming accounts for one sixth of household cash income from agricultural operations.
At present, China's per capita daily intake of animal protein is 33 grams, which, though above the world average, is still far below the level of developed countries, and annual new demand for meat will exceed 800,000 tons in the future; China's per capita milk availability is less than 1/3 of the world average and less than half of the Asian average, while imported milk, converted to raw milk, accounts for one third of domestic consumption; demand for beef and mutton is rising rapidly, growing 60% over 12 years, but production capacity is insufficient, making the supply-demand gap prominent, and terms such as "Beef Demon King" and "Mutton Concubine" have appeared repeatedly. By estimate, for some time to come China will consume at least 230 million kg of meat, 80 million kg of poultry eggs and 100 million kg of milk every day.
To meet such large consumption, the most fundamental task is to maintain the inventory of foundation female livestock and protect farmers' and herders' enthusiasm for raising female livestock. Since last year, the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Finance have implemented subsidies for expanding herds of beef cattle foundation female livestock, which have achieved good results. To accelerate the improvement of animal husbandry production capacity, China is making its improved-breed breeding system bigger and stronger, gradually reducing dependence on imported breeding livestock and poultry, focusing on transforming extensive livestock and poultry farming methods, and promoting and popularizing advanced and applicable feeding and management technologies, striving to achieve major breakthroughs in independent innovation in livestock and poultry seed industries, standardized feeding and management, and animal disease prevention and control.
"More importantly, animal husbandry should be based on each region's resource endowments and optimize regional layout." In the view of Han Changfu, Minister of Agriculture, northern China has a large per capita land area and conditions for developing family pastures; the south has more people and less land, so it should rely on leading enterprises and develop large farming households. Poultry and pig industrialization is highly developed, so factory-style intensive farming should be promoted. Cattle and sheep have long production cycles, so through household breeding and concentrated fattening models, processing enterprises can play a greater driving role.
According to relevant plans, optimization of the regional layout of animal husbandry is being steadily advanced. Northern pastoral areas are important ecological barriers, and the basic policy of organically combining production and ecology with ecological priority should be adhered to; by transforming production and operation methods, improving cattle and sheep breeds should be accelerated and production efficiency raised. In traditional agricultural areas, farming technology is widely popularized, but in some areas farming density is too high, so standardized large-scale farming should be accelerated, grain should be promoted for local conversion through livestock, and granaries should be turned into meat warehouses. In the farming-pastoral transition zone, there are both abundant straw resources and certain grazing conditions, so the planting structure should be rationally adjusted, crop and livestock farming should be integrated, and this should drive livestock breeding in semi-pastoral areas and fattening of feeder cattle and sheep in agricultural areas, promoting the development of the cattle and sheep industry.
Protecting the ecology: advancing crop-livestock integration
With the rapid development of animal husbandry, some areas have shown worsening pollution and ecological degradation. In some agricultural areas, manure is discharged at will, causing non-point source pollution; in some pastoral areas, overgrazing has brought grassland degradation, desertification and alkalinization. According to statistics, China produces 3 billion tons of livestock and poultry manure each year, but the effective treatment rate is less than 50%; degraded, desertified and alkalinized grassland area is nearly 2 billion mu.
Faced with the reality of increasingly serious non-point source pollution from farming, relevant laws and regulations have also been formulated and revised at a faster pace. In January 2014, China's first administrative regulation on agricultural and rural environmental protection, the Regulations on the Prevention and Control of Pollution from Large-scale Livestock and Poultry Farming, began to be implemented. In October of the same year, the State Council General Office issued the Opinions on Establishing a Harmless Treatment Mechanism for Diseased and Dead Livestock and Poultry. In 2015, the newly revised Environmental Protection Law began to be implemented. All of these raised the entry threshold for the livestock and poultry industry, and people realized that the previous extensive path of producing while polluting would no longer work.
"We should vigorously promote circular agriculture integrating crop and livestock farming, open up the channel for coordinated development of crop and livestock farming, promote circular utilization and turn waste into treasure, solving both the feed problem of what livestock and poultry 'eat' and the manure and urine problem of what they 'discharge'." said Yu Kangzhen, Vice Minister of Agriculture. He said that according to the principle of combining agriculture and livestock farming and balancing crop and livestock farming, scientific layout of livestock and poultry farming should be adhered to, reductions should be made to the required extent, prohibitions should be resolutely enforced where required, and limits should not be exceeded, striving to match livestock and poultry farming with environmental capacity. Clean farming should be promoted, large-scale farms should be urged to improve manure treatment and utilization facilities, clean production processes and precision feed formula technologies should be popularized, and manure generation should be minimized.
Wang Yanliang, director of the Agricultural Ecology and Resource Protection General Station of the Ministry of Agriculture, believes that, on the one hand, environmental carrying capacity and pollution prevention and control requirements for livestock and poultry farming should be considered as a whole, organic fertilizer return-to-field utilization should be promoted, agricultural and livestock circular development should be advanced, and supportive policies should be studied and adopted to encourage enterprises to invest in organic fertilizer production. On the other hand, standardized large-scale farming should be vigorously promoted, support should be given to large-scale farms (zones) to build supporting livestock and poultry manure treatment facilities, comprehensive utilization of livestock and poultry manure should be done well, centralized treatment centers should be built in areas with high crop and livestock density, and third-party treatment and comprehensive utilization mechanisms for large-scale farming manure should be explored.
Ensuring returns: building whole-industry chains
China's per capita arable land area is small, and crop farming is clearly constrained by operating scale. Relatively speaking, animal husbandry is more capital-intensive, has more obvious technology-intensive advantages, and can more easily break through in operating scale. Experts believe that most of the problems currently existing in animal husbandry must be solved by promoting the shift from scattered farming to large-scale farming.
Take the dairy industry as an example. In recent years, China's dairy industry has seen alternating milk shortages and milk surpluses. In 2013, when milk supply was tight, some dairy enterprises scrambled for milk sources and drove up milk prices. In 2014, when milk supply was excessive, they again downgraded and pressured prices, and refused or limited purchases. The industry believes that China's dairy cattle farming and dairy processing are disconnected, dairy enterprises only handle processing and control the purchasing power and pricing power of raw milk, while dairy farmers only raise cattle and are in a weak position. The unsound interest-linking mechanism between dairy processing enterprises and dairy farmers is an important factor causing the above fluctuations.
The animal husbandry industry chain is long, involving multiple links such as breeding, farming, processing and sales. To build modern animal husbandry, efforts should be made in extending forward and backward, circulation and processing, and socialized services. The interest-linking mechanism should be improved, and through various methods such as leadership by leading enterprises, mergers, joint ventures and joint operations, enterprises should be encouraged to develop in depth into farming, planting and processing. "Milk is fresh and perishable, so the dairy industry should most of all implement integrated operations. All localities should vigorously cultivate new dairy industry operating entities, improve the interest-linking mechanism between dairy enterprises and dairy farmers, and continuously raise the degree of organization." said Han Changfu, Minister of Agriculture.
Forage accounts for 70% of farming costs and is the upstream of animal husbandry. Without high-quality forage, cattle and sheep farming levels cannot rise, production costs cannot come down, and the industry cannot develop well. In the past, China paid insufficient attention to the forage industry. In the future, it should face the entire national land resources and coordinate the development of natural grasslands and planted forage. Ma Youxiang, director of the Department of Animal Husbandry of the Ministry of Agriculture, said that natural pasture is the most economical source of feed, grassland ecology should be protected, livestock should be determined by grass, and at the same time planted forage should also be done well. In recent years, Inner Mongolia, Ningxia and other places have planted oats, alfalfa and other crops on natural grasslands, effectively increasing forage. This year, the central government arranged 720 million yuan in special funds to support qualified provinces in building a number of standardized forage production bases.
"Wealth of ten thousand strings, but what has hair is not counted." Li Shouyuan, a senior livestock engineer at the Shandong Provincial Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Bureau, said that animal husbandry is the main channel for employment and income growth for the vast number of herders, but affected by rising production costs, declining comparative returns, and the risks of disease and market fluctuations, livestock and poultry farming has become more volatile. Data show that since 2009, animal husbandry farming costs have increased by nearly 40%, and many farming households have increased production without increasing income. The H7N9 epidemic in 2013 dealt a heavy blow to the poultry industry, with losses exceeding 100 billion yuan. Pig prices were sluggish for 3 consecutive years, and in 2014 each finished pig lost 110 yuan.
At present, the coverage of animal husbandry insurance is still insufficient, and the market regulation methods for animal husbandry are also limited. Under the new situation, how can the market risk of livestock and poultry farming be minimized? Wang Zhicai, Chief Livestock Engineer of the Ministry of Agriculture, believes that experience from developed countries should be drawn on, and for major livestock products such as pigs and dairy cattle, regulation contingency plans to prevent large fluctuations in production and prices should be formulated, and market regulation measures such as temporary purchase and storage should be improved. Pilot projects for target price insurance for pigs should be carried out, and efforts should be made to promote and implement them as soon as possible in major pig-producing counties. On the basis of implementing policy-based insurance for pigs and dairy cattle, policy-based insurance pilots for beef cattle and mutton sheep should be gradually carried out.