Ecological agriculture is the way out for China's food security
1. The basic national conditions of China's grain production
In recent years, after conducting on-site investigations in Shandong, Henan, Hebei, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Gansu, Liaoning, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Hunan, Hubei, Sichuan, Guangdong, Hainan and other places, I have become very worried, even anxious, about our country's current food security problem. Among the 30 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions in mainland China, 50% have insufficient grain. Among them, Hainan, Qinghai, Fujian, Zhejiang, Shanghai, Beijing and others have self-sufficiency rates of only 12%-56%. Only a few provinces are truly grain-rich, such as Heilongjiang, Jilin, Inner Mongolia and Henan, with self-sufficiency rates of 150%-375%; while Gansu, Ningxia, Jiangsu, Hunan, Sichuan and others have just enough for their own use (self-sufficiency rates of 102%-107%), with almost no grain available for transfer. We must attach great importance to the food crisis. If it is not handled well, this crisis may trigger social unrest.
At present, in China, the following practical problems exist in grain production and consumption:
First, there are too many people and too little land, and arable land resources are seriously insufficient. China's arable land area ranks fourth in the world, after the United States, Russia and India, but our country has too large a population. Averaged per person, each person has only 1.4 mu of arable land, less than 50% of the world's per capita arable land area. In Canada, per capita arable land is 18 times ours, and in India it is 20 times ours. China's per capita land area ranks below 110th among more than 190 countries in the world, and its arable land area ranks below 126th. At present, 664 cities and counties in China already have per capita arable land below the warning line of 0.8 mu per person set by the United Nations. The country's arable land area has already dropped to 1.8 billion mu, and the contradiction of too many people and too little land is becoming increasingly prominent with the rapid social and economic development.
Second, farmers are gradually losing their enthusiasm for growing grain. The cost of farming is high, while grain prices are low. Taking wheat and corn cultivation in rural Shandong as an example, the farming costs for chemical fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides, mechanical plowing, irrigation, harvesting and seeds amount to 580 yuan per mu. In medium-yield fields in Shandong, wheat and corn are both about 800-900 jin/mu (excluding labor costs). If there is drought, or if fertilizer, pesticides and plastic film rise in price, the income is only 500-600 yuan. In the Shandong area, growing two seasons only brings in the income of one season, far less than what one can earn by working outside for a month, and according to Yuan Longping's calculations, farmers in the Hunan area have a net income of only four or five yuan from growing rice! In the 1970s, the annual yield of wheat and corn in the Shandong area already exceeded 1,000 jin/mu, with an income of 200 RMB. If the purchasing power of 200 RMB at that time is calculated in gold, it is worth 27,000 yuan today!
Third, soil fertility is declining. Because farming does not make money, farmers do not take good care of the land. Traditional intensive cultivation methods have been ruthlessly abandoned, and people have turned instead to relying on chemical fertilizers, pesticides, agricultural film and herbicides, causing a serious decline in soil fertility. Farmland, orchards and vegetable gardens use large amounts of pesticides. Farmland is full of killing intent everywhere, pests are killed in ever greater numbers, and beneficial insects and birds are becoming fewer and fewer. Due to the decline in soil fertility, China's per-unit grain yield has shown almost no significant growth in the past 8 years, but the amount of chemical fertilizer applied has increased by 40%. Each kilogram of chemical fertilizer produces less than 19 kilograms of grain, and the production efficiency per kilogram of chemical fertilizer is declining at a rate of 1 kilogram less grain produced. This trend precisely shows that China's arable land does not lack chemical fertilizer, but lacks organic fertilizer and soil biodiversity.
Fourth, arable land is being left fallow, and the planted area cannot be guaranteed. Because grain is cheap, even if yields increase, it cannot bring real benefits to farmers. Clever farmers in Jiangnan have already let their land lie fallow, as long as they have enough to eat themselves, and they have no interest in producing grain for city dwellers. The phenomenon of abandoned farmland in Hunan, Hubei, Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Guangdong, Sichuan and other places is becoming more and more serious. In addition, real estate development and industrial development are being carried out vigorously all over the country, repeatedly challenging the red line of 1.8 billion mu of arable land. Local governments occupy good farmland under the name of “occupation-compensation balance”, but what they get back is almost all low-quality farmland, which greatly reduces the effective grain sowing area.
Fifth, grain imports have a great impact on China's agricultural production. On the one hand, farmers' enthusiasm for farming is declining, and grain production capacity is inherently insufficient; on the other hand, large amounts of grain and oil crops are imported. In 2014, China imported 72.5 million tons of grain from the United States, Brazil and other countries, including soybeans, barley and sorghum. In fact, our bottom line for food security was already breached as early as 2011. That year China imported 52.5 million tons of genetically modified soybeans, 5 million tons of genetically modified corn, 1.2 million tons of wheat, 1.51 million tons of soybean oil and 6.6 million tons of palm oil. Imported grain, plus imported oil crops and oil crops converted into grain, totaled as much as 139 million tons, accounting for 19.2% of China's consumption that year, greatly exceeding the 10% safety warning line. Large grain imports are not consistent with the official claim of “eleven consecutive increases” in grain.
Sixth, agricultural infrastructure construction is seriously lagging, and we are living off the old capital of the Mao Zedong era. Taking farmland water conservancy facilities as an example, most of China's key farmland water conservancy projects were built from the 1950s to the 1970s. Up to now, the aging and damage of water conservancy facilities has become very serious, and there is a lack of maintenance and construction. Some farmland water conservancy facilities can no longer perform their due functions of drought resistance, flood drainage and irrigation. According to investigations by water conservancy departments, the supporting rate of projects in large and medium-sized irrigation districts nationwide is only 70%, the intact rate of key projects is only 50%, the dangerous sections of key channels reach 30%, the intact rate of buildings such as gates, culverts and bridges above branch canals is only 50.1%, and the intact rate of large and medium-sized drainage and irrigation pumping stations is less than 60%. As a result, the effective irrigated area of arable land decreases by 3 million mu each year.
Seventh, large amounts of grain are wasted. With the improvement of people's living standards, along with the serious disconnect between the prices of grain and non-staple foods and their value, and because for a long time agriculture has emphasized quantity over quality, the quality of agricultural products has continuously declined. Cheap food has gradually become associated with garbage, and people do not feel distressed about wasting it. From 2006 to 2008, after a systematic analysis of the protein and fat in leftover meals from 2,700 dining tables of different scales in large, medium and small cities, a rough estimate showed that in China in 2007 to 2008 alone, food protein and fat wasted in catering amounted to 8 million tons and 3 million tons respectively. Based on a comprehensive estimate of protein, fat, carbohydrates, minerals and vitamins wasted in catering, Chinese consumers, in dining consumption at restaurants above designated size alone, have thrown away at least the equivalent of one year's rations for about 200 million people! China has gradually entered the ranks of major catering consumption countries, and the problem of waste is even more prominent during holidays, gatherings of relatives and friends, and official receptions. Some experts estimate that if collective canteen waste, individual and household food waste, and waste during grain storage and transportation are included, the total amount of food wasted nationwide each year could feed 250 million to 300 million people! From this perspective, the large amount of grain we import turns into real garbage on the dining table. Such a phenomenon is truly shocking.
2. The risks of genetically modified agriculture
Against the backdrop of deteriorating agricultural production capacity, the repeated “consecutive increases” in grain output over many years are highly questionable. The pattern of grain production is “one abundant year, one poor year and two average years”, so consecutive years of grain harvests do not conform to agricultural laws. Another suspicious point is that China's grain imports have been strengthening as grain output increases. The import volume of wheat, corn and soybeans alone rose from 27.49 million tons in 2004 to 71.4 million tons in 2014, an increase of 159%, and this does not even include imported oil crops converted into grain. At the same time, China's total grain output (including cereals, beans and tubers) rose from 469.46 million tons in 2004 to 607.09 million tons in 2014, an increase of only 29%. It can be seen that the year-by-year increase in grain imports, with increasing intensity, has to a certain extent supported the “eleven consecutive increases” in grain.
China's current agriculture is basically a heap of loose sand, living off past capital. The food crisis is like the tip of an iceberg, slowly approaching. How should China respond to this crisis? Many experts and enterprises are calling for genetically modified crops, and only a small number of people, like the author, suggest ecological agriculture. Which path is truly the bright road for China's food security? In my view, under current technical conditions, rashly applying transgenic technology to agriculture will bring enormous dangers to China's food safety, ecosystems and grain strategy. This requires our great attention.
1. Genetically modified crops and food safety
Transgenic technology is a high technology. As a reserve of scientific research capacity, we should strongly support research on it. But if it is to be applied to grain production, which is a matter of life and death, we must be extremely cautious. Over the past 20-plus years, controversy over the food safety of genetically modified foods has never stopped. Although many experts claim that genetically modified foods are safe and can be eaten with confidence, they cannot determine what consequences long-term consumption of genetically modified foods will bring. In fact, due to the relativity of human knowledge, how a certain technology used in food will turn out requires a very long period of time to see clearly. Before that, any promise or guarantee of its safety is extremely irresponsible. For example, Sudan Red was first hailed as a new human invention, but now adding Sudan Red to food is a criminal act, and the household name melamine was first introduced to society as a second-class award for scientific and technological progress, and only when the lives and health of thousands of children were fatally affected did people recognize this murderous chemical name. Although human science and technology are developing rapidly, humanity's control over genes is still far from being able to do as it pleases. Whether easily combining genes from different sources will bring serious consequences still requires long-term testing. This is not something that can be easily concluded from the results of a few animal experiments. To date, Monsanto has never provided any direct evidence that genetically modified foods are harmless when consumed by humans. We know that the development of new drugs still requires four phases of clinical human trials, yet genetically modified foods easily pass with the light phrase “international regulations say food does not need human trials” or “substantial equivalence”, which is truly unconvincing.
Regarding the food safety issue of genetically modified grain, one specific controversy is whether the transgenic Bt protein is harmful to humans. According to the claims of China's transgenic experts, China's evaluation of the safety of genetically modified crops is very strict, even to the point of being harsh. So what exactly is this “harsh” evaluation? It is merely a 7-day “acute toxicity test” of the Bt protein! That is, Bt protein was directly given to mice by gavage at a dose of 5 grams of Bt pure protein per kilogram of mouse body weight, and the results showed no poisoning in the mice. From this, they concluded that for “Huahui No. 1”, which obtained the safety certificate, the insect-resistant protein content in rice is ≤2.5 micrograms/gram. To reach the test dose of 5 grams/kilogram (ratio of insect-resistant protein to body weight), a person weighing 60 kilograms would need to eat 120 tons of rice. In other words, reasoning from this experimental result, if calculated on the basis of eating 500 grams of rice per day, an adult could eat ‘Huahui No. 1’ transgenic rice for 657 years and should be safe. However, the above rice safety experiments were all conducted under assumed conditions. The mouse Bt protein gavage experiment and an adult or even a child eating rice containing Bt protein every day are completely different concepts. Mechanically extrapolating from a mouse's body weight to a human's body weight, and from this judging that an adult eating transgenic rice for 657 years would have no safety problems, is also very arbitrary. In fact, scientific research shows that Bt protein, which is toxic to insect cells, can cause apoptosis in human cells such as HL-60. This fully proves that Bt protein has potential toxicity to humans. Therefore, the safety of genetically modified grain must be reassessed, otherwise it will lead to serious consequences.
2. Genetically modified crops and ecosystem health
An ecosystem refers to a relatively stable dynamic equilibrium state formed within a certain period of time in a certain space in nature through the mutual influence and mutual constraint of organisms and the environment. An ecosystem is an organic whole, and damage to any link will endanger the entire system. Applying transgenic technology to agriculture will bring disaster to the ecosystem.
First, the impact on biodiversity. On the one hand, genetically modified organisms harm non-target organisms. Insect-resistant and disease-resistant transgenic plants released into the environment, in addition to being toxic to pests and pathogens, will also have direct or indirect effects on many beneficial organisms in the environment, causing the death of some beneficial organisms. Recently, it has been found abroad that species such as butterflies and bees show declining population trends due to the planting of transgenic crops. More seriously, when planting transgenic crops with insect-resistant and disease-resistant traits, people will use herbicides and insecticides even more without scruple, thereby killing all species other than the transgenic crops, causing an imbalance of species in the farmland ecosystem. On the other hand, the weed resistance and insect resistance of transgenic crops easily induce variation in target weeds and target pests, thereby producing “super weeds” and “super pests” that are even harder to eliminate. In this way, more pesticides need to be sprayed, causing greater harm to farmland and the natural ecological environment.
Second, the impact on soil fertility. Soil fertility is an important factor affecting agricultural production efficiency. Among the many factors affecting soil fertility, soil microorganisms occupy an important position, as they are the concrete embodiment of soil activity. Soil microorganisms play an important role in many aspects, including the formation and degradation of organic matter, the mineralization and fixation of nutrients, the improvement of soil structure, and the regulation of plant pathology. After planting transgenic Bt crops, the number and activity of some functional microorganisms in the soil decline. Compared with conventional cotton, transgenic Bt cotton has only 74%-77% similarity in soil rhizosphere bacterial diversity at the seedling stage; at the bud stage and flowering stage, the similarity is only 58%-60%. In soil where transgenic Bt cotton was planted in India, the number of actinomycetes decreased by 17%, and the number of other beneficial microorganisms also decreased by 14%; in soil where transgenic insect-resistant cotton had been planted for 10 years in China, the number of nitrogen-fixing bacteria decreased significantly, from 17% in the control to 11% in the transgenic cotton, a decrease of about 35%. In addition, planting transgenic crops also affects soil animal communities, causing changes in the structure and function of soil animals. All of this has a major impact on soil fertility.
Finally, the impact on the water environment. In September 2010, research by American scientists published in the authoritative journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that many rivers around the U.S. Midwest corn belt were contaminated by toxic proteins from genetically modified corn. More than 85% of corn in the United States is genetically modified to repel pests or resist herbicides. Genetically modified corn can repel the European corn borer and can also produce an insecticidal Cry(12A)b toxic protein. In rivers within 500 meters around corn fields, researchers detected this toxic protein in plant debris; among 217 rivers sampled, 86% contained corn leaves, husks, stalks or grain cobs; 13% of rivers contained detectable Cry(12A)b protein.
Another major use of transgenic crops is weed control. Countries like the United States have long abandoned intensive farming methods and use herbicides to control weeds. The biggest problem with herbicide-resistant crops is glyphosate residues. Is such food safe? On September 21, 2012, the University of Caen in France conducted a two-year experiment on 200 laboratory rats and found that those fed glyphosate-resistant corn NK603 were prone to tumors and organ damage. When the experiment reached the 14th month, no rats in the control group were found to have cancer, while in the groups fed feed containing NK603 and glyphosate herbicide, 10% to 30% of the rats developed tumors. When the experiment reached the 24th month, in all groups fed feed containing NK603 and glyphosate herbicide, 50% to 80% of the rats developed tumors, and each rat had an average of as many as 3 tumors.
The impact of genetically modified crops on health has long attracted the attention of medical institutions. As early as 2009, the American Academy of Environmental Medicine officially declared that genetically modified foods seriously endanger human health. The academy published a research report saying: “Some animal studies show that eating genetically modified foods carries risks of serious health damage, including infertility, immune problems, accelerated aging, insulin regulation, and changes in major organs and the gastrointestinal system.”.