How to Transform Agriculture's Development Model? A Full Analysis of Direction and Path
Behind the achievement of “twelve consecutive increases” in summer grain production lies the main thread of China's agriculture closely focusing on “stabilizing grain production, increasing incomes, adjusting structure, improving quality, raising efficiency and transforming the development model.” Today, grain production no longer focuses only on annual output, but pays more attention to storing grain in the land and storing grain in technology; resource utilization and environmental protection are implemented in tandem; the integrated development of the primary, secondary and tertiary industries is advancing, and the grain economy and the structure of planting and breeding are constantly being optimized——
The recent State Council executive meeting deployed efforts to accelerate the transformation of the agricultural development model and take the path of safe, efficient and green development. As appropriately scaled operations and the cultivation of operating entities accelerate in tandem, structural adjustment and layout optimization advance together, and resource utilization and environmental protection are implemented together…… the transformation of agriculture across the country has taken solid steps.
Cultivating Entities and Innovating Operations
Like most places across the country, agricultural operations in Chongzhou, Sichuan, a major grain-producing county, also face the constraints of “fragmented land, scattered funds and a lack of services.” In recent years, the locality has explored an agricultural co-operative operation system of “land share cooperatives + professional agricultural managers.” Villagers set up land cooperatives by contributing land as shares; the cooperative council decides “what to plant,” and professional managers are responsible for “how to plant it.” Net operating income is distributed according to a 1:2:7 ratio: one tenth as the cooperative's reserve fund, two tenths as the professional manager's commission, and seven tenths as dividends to members. Wei Tao, 28, is the professional agricultural manager of the local Qianfeng Land Share Cooperative. Last year, the cooperative had a good rapeseed harvest and high rice yields, and Wei Tao's income exceeded 100,000 yuan.
Innovating agricultural operation methods requires not only guiding the concentration of land, but also raising the level of agricultural socialized services. The Jixian Comprehensive Agricultural Service Station in Chongzhou undertakes public-interest agricultural services such as agricultural technology, agricultural machinery and animal husbandry for several nearby townships. The comprehensive station also operates an agricultural service supermarket on a market-oriented basis. In the service hall, the fee standards for agricultural machinery operations, plant protection, labor services and others are clear at a glance. The agricultural machinery hospital under the agricultural supermarket can provide maintenance and servicing for 200 large and medium-sized agricultural machines and tools each year.
Cheng Guoqiang, a researcher at the Development Research Center of the State Council, said that the exploration of the agricultural co-operative operation system meets the needs of agricultural operation transformation. Without transferring land, it has cultivated two types of new operating entities, namely professional agricultural managers and specialized agricultural service organizations. The former improves the efficiency of agricultural decision-making and operations; the latter promotes the technical division of labor in agriculture and raises production efficiency.
At the beginning of this year, the Jiangsu Provincial Commission of Agriculture conducted a survey of college students' willingness to work in agriculture-related fields at agriculture-related universities across the province. Data showed that 29% of agriculture-related majors were willing to work in rural areas. How can agriculture have successors? Jiangsu Province vigorously promotes the cultivation of new-type professional farmers. In the central and northern Jiangsu areas, where part-time farming and full-time farming households are common, the focus is on developing service-led appropriately scaled operations, forming new operation models represented by joint farming and joint planting in Sheyang County and farmland trusteeship in Suining County.
As of now, the proportion of China's cultivated land transferred to the area contracted by households has exceeded 30.4%, and the number of households operating more than 50 mu of land has exceeded 3.41 million. The Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Finance have continuously increased support for new-type entities, implementing the new-type professional farmer cultivation project and the modern young farmer program. As of the end of June, the number of farmer cooperatives registered with industry and commerce authorities nationwide had reached 1.412 million.
Combining Planting and Breeding, Linking the Primary and Tertiary Industries
Along with consecutive increases in grain output, structural contradictions in China's agricultural development, such as between quantity and quality and between total volume and structure, have become prominent. The variety and quality structure of agricultural products does not match the rapid upgrading of residents' consumption; there is a gap between production and consumer demand for high-quality beef and mutton, dairy products, fruits and vegetables and other agricultural products. The weak integration of planting and breeding and poor circulation are prominent, the structure of grain and feed is unreasonable, the connection between the planting industry and the breeding industry is insufficient, the integration of the primary, secondary and tertiary industries is inadequate, and the level of agricultural product processing and the rate of conversion and value addition remain low.
Giving consideration to both grain and forage and combining planting with breeding are important elements of adjusting the agricultural structure. Ye Zhenqin, director of the Planning Department of the Ministry of Agriculture, said that according to the China Grain Development Report, the proportion of feed grain in total grain consumption in China has risen from 26% to 34%. In the future, ensuring an effective supply of feed grain will be difficult. At the same time, as China's per capita GDP enters the range of 6,000 to 10,000 US dollars, demand for meat, eggs and milk is higher. Developing herbivorous animal husbandry can better meet the needs of upgrading China's food consumption structure.
Bei'an City in Heilongjiang Province is located in the transitional zone from the Lesser Khingan Mountains to the Songnen Plain and is a major production area for crops such as soybeans and corn. Since being designated as a pilot city for grain-soybean rotation in 2015, Bei'an City has promoted the optimization and adjustment of the planting structure, with soybean planting increasing from one third to two thirds of total sown area. Tongyu County is the only animal husbandry county in Jilin Province, with 6 million mu of existing cultivated land and 3.5 million mu of grassland. After being designated by the Ministry of Agriculture as a pilot county for converting grain to feed, the county focused on solving the difficulty of supplying high-quality forage. As the benefits of planting silage corn increased, cattle and sheep farms and silage corn bases achieved effective linkage.
At the Yonghe Creative Agriculture Sightseeing Park in Wanchun Town, Wenjiang District, Chengdu, striking purple rice plants trace out a pattern of a giant panda in the green rice fields, drawing visitors to stop and look. “Farming areas become scenic areas, pastoral fields become parks.” Chengdu is striving to build rural tourism attractions with cultural depth, holding 110 rural festival activities each year, effectively promoting the integrated development of the primary and tertiary industries.
Saving Water, Controlling Pesticides, Treating Pollution and Cleaning Up the Soil
China's agricultural development has made enormous achievements, but it has also paid a great price. On the one hand, agricultural resources have been over-exploited, the multiple cropping index is high, and the string of resources is being pulled tighter and tighter; on the other hand, agricultural non-point source pollution has worsened, agricultural ecosystems have degraded, and the agricultural ecological environment has shown a “red light.” An important focus of transforming the agricultural development model is the sustainability of the ecological environment. Not long ago, the Ministry of Agriculture took the lead in issuing the National Plan for Sustainable Agricultural Development, which clearly put forward the goals of “one control, two reductions and three basics.”
The proportion of China's agricultural water use in total social water use has declined from 69.3% in 1998 to 63.4% in 2013. During the same period, China's grain, cotton, oil, fruit, vegetables and sugar all increased substantially. This was mainly due to improved agricultural water use efficiency. Han Changfu, Minister of Agriculture, believes that the fundamental way out for water conservation is still to vigorously develop water-saving agriculture, carry out water-saving agriculture demonstrations by region, improve field water-saving facilities and equipment, and actively promote water-saving varieties and water-saving technologies. The strictest water resource management system should be implemented, and red lines for water resource development and utilization control and water use efficiency control should be established.
In recent years, China's total livestock and poultry breeding volume has continued to rise, with 3.8 billion tons of livestock and poultry manure produced nationwide each year, and an effective treatment rate of less than 50%. Wang Zhicai, Chief Animal Husbandry Engineer of the Ministry of Agriculture, said that it is necessary to take overall account of environmental carrying capacity and the requirements for preventing and controlling livestock and poultry breeding pollution, promote the return of organic fertilizer to fields, and vigorously promote standardized scaled breeding, support scaled breeding farms (areas) in building supporting livestock and poultry manure treatment facilities, and explore third-party treatment and comprehensive utilization mechanisms for manure from scaled breeding.
In recent years, China's pesticide use has been about 310,000 tons (active ingredients), with a utilization rate of only 35%. “Low-toxicity biological pesticides have poor insecticidal effects, and combined with factors such as farmers' production habits, this makes them difficult to promote.” Zeng Yande, director of the Planting Industry Department of the Ministry of Agriculture, said that green prevention and control efforts should be increased, integrated promotion should be carried out according to local conditions for full-process pesticide reduction and pest control technology models suitable for different crops, and a group of well-equipped and efficient specialized pest control service organizations should be developed.