Nationwide summer grain harvest exceeds 90 percent, output expected to hit a new high
The wheat has all been harvested. Xu Zongxiang, the “Wheat King” of Taihe County, Fuyang City, Anhui Province, is busy with field management, preparing to reap an even bigger autumn grain harvest on top of the summer grain bumper crop. According to the Ministry of Agriculture's crop monitoring and actual harvest results from various regions, the nationwide summer grain harvest has now passed 90 percent, a bumper harvest is a foregone conclusion, and the summer grain output is expected to hit a new high. With the global wheat production situation hardly encouraging this year, China's wheat production has bucked the trend, and achieving a “12th consecutive bumper harvest” is now a foregone conclusion. This is of great significance, powerfully boosting confidence in securing a bumper harvest for the whole year and laying a good foundation for increasing annual grain output.
Good policies translate grain production capacity into results in the fields
Grain is the foundation of all industries. This year's No. 1 Central Document proposed continuously strengthening grain production capacity, further improving and implementing the provincial governor responsibility system for grain, strengthening policy support for major grain-producing provinces and counties, and ensuring that major grain-producing counties gain real benefits and development from prioritizing agriculture and grain. It called for exploring the establishment of grain production functional zones and translating staple grain production capacity down to individual fields. The central government continued to increase support for policies that strengthen agriculture, benefit farmers and enrich rural areas, and central fiscal investment in agriculture saw new increases.
Good policies have stimulated farmers' enthusiasm for growing grain. Zhang Yisong, a major grain grower in Niuzhong Village, Niujiaodian Town, Dong'e County, Shandong Province, said his family had transferred more than 1,000 mu of farmland, earning a net income of 500 to 600 yuan per mu from grain. The state provides grain subsidies every year. Last year he spent 130,000 yuan on a combine harvester, and the state's agricultural machinery subsidy alone was 32,000 yuan. This year during the “three summer” period, he earned more than 30,000 yuan just from mechanical wheat harvesting for others locally and in Xinyang, Henan.
Good policies keep coming. With the approval of the State Council, this year China will launch the adjustment and improvement of three agricultural subsidy policies: subsidies for improved crop varieties, direct subsidies to grain farmers, and comprehensive subsidies for agricultural inputs. Pilot programs will be carried out in 5 provinces - Anhui, Shandong, Hunan, Sichuan and Zhejiang - merging the three subsidies into “agricultural support and protection subsidies.” The recipients are all farming households holding contracted farmland rights, and farmers receiving subsidies must ensure their farmland is not left fallow and soil fertility does not decline. Through the “three-in-one” approach, fiscal funds can more effectively support grain production.
Effectively safeguarding the interests of grain farmers and removing their worries about selling grain. At the beginning of the year, the state announced the wheat purchase price. Recently, the National Development and Reform Commission issued the “2015 Implementation Plan for Minimum Purchase Prices of Wheat and Rice.” According to the plan, the minimum purchase price for white wheat, red wheat and mixed wheat is 1.18 yuan per jin. The major wheat-producing areas covered by the plan are 6 provinces - Hebei, Jiangsu, Anhui, Shandong, Henan and Hubei - and the implementation period is from May 21 to September 30, 2015.
Financial support for grain purchasing has maintained steady progress. Data from the Agricultural Development Bank of China show that from January to April this year, the bank issued a cumulative total of 210.9 billion yuan in various grain and oil purchase loans, an increase of 27.598 billion yuan year-on-year, a growth rate of 15.06 percent.
Good policies are like spring rain nourishing the land. The nationwide summer grain sown area increased slightly while remaining stable, and farmers' enthusiasm for spring plowing and preparation and for summer harvest and management ran high. Analyzing the factors making up summer grain output: first, the area increased slightly while remaining stable, reaching 415 million mu, more than 1 million mu more than the previous year. Second, per-unit yield rose steadily. Experts analyzed that among the three factors making up wheat output, the number of ears per mu increased, the number of grains per ear rose slightly while remaining stable, and the thousand-grain weight declined slightly.
Zeng Yande, director of the Ministry of Agriculture's Department of Crop Production, said, “On the whole, per-unit yield has increased.”
Strong science and technology: summer grain growth relies on scientific and technological progress
The summer grain bumper harvest, now a foregone conclusion, did not come easily, and science and technology played a very important role in grain production. Guo Tiancai, deputy head of the Ministry of Agriculture's wheat expert guidance group, said: “This year's wheat has an appropriate population, sufficient number of productive ears, and the ears are not small either. The increase in wheat per-unit yield owes much to scientific and technological progress.”
The penetration rate of improved varieties is growing ever higher. In Huimin County, Shandong Province, China National Seed Group reached a cooperation agreement with local major grain grower Gao Renqiang, under which Shandong Luyan Agricultural Improved Seed Company, a subsidiary of China National Seed Group, would provide him with “Luyuan 502” wheat seed. This year he planted 600 mu in total, and the variety performed very well, with a high tillering rate, large ears and resistance to lodging, averaging 1,100 jin per mu. Gao Renqiang could not have been happier: “I plan to expand by another four or five hundred mu next year.”
“One spray, three preventions” curbed pests and diseases in overwintering wheat. Affected by the warm winter, this year's wheat had a high overwintering base of pests and diseases, and pests and diseases such as wheat stripe rust appeared early and affected large areas, increasing the difficulty of spring control. Agricultural departments strengthened pest and disease early warning and monitoring, released pest and disease information in a timely manner, vigorously promoted specialized unified prevention and control, focused on monitoring and controlling major pests and diseases - migratory, epidemic and explosive ones - at their source areas and in areas of recurring outbreaks, and organized spring campaigns to prevent pests and diseases and secure a bumper harvest.
Cross-regional mechanical harvesting played the role of the main force. In late June, large-scale cross-regional mechanical harvesting in China's major wheat-producing areas was fully completed. This year during the “three summer” period, 560,000 combine harvesters were deployed across various regions, with a mechanical harvesting rate exceeding 92 percent. The agricultural authorities' careful organization and scheduling of the summer harvest, the promotion and application of a batch of new agricultural mechanization technologies, and the growing maturity of the cross-regional operations market allowed this year's summer harvest work to be completed smoothly amid a race against time yet in an orderly atmosphere, during which the single-day mechanical harvesting area exceeded 10 million mu for 11 consecutive days.
Agriculture Minister Han Changfu said that at present China's agricultural scientific and technological progress contribution rate exceeds 56 percent, improved varieties of major crops have basically achieved full coverage, the comprehensive mechanization level of plowing, sowing and harvesting exceeds 61 percent, and the proportion of effectively irrigated farmland exceeds 52 percent. These are remarkable historic achievements.
Mode transformation: “the same bumper harvest, a different kind of growth”
Asked what new features characterized this year's summer grain bumper harvest, Zeng Yande, director of the Ministry of Agriculture's Department of Crop Production, spoke frankly: “It is the same bumper harvest as before, but it highlights a different kind of growth than before - the green growth model of agriculture.”
Mode transformation: the shift is toward green growth.
In Houguai Village, Huadian Town, Qihe County, Shandong Province, villagers talked with reporters about the “green” bumper harvest. “My wheat has already been harvested, and the average per-unit yield on 360 mu was 1,360 jin, even more than the experts estimated.” Major grain grower Zhao Jincheng said: “The amount of chemical fertilizer was reduced, but output did not drop at all.”
Zhao Jincheng's plot is located in Qihe County's 300,000-mu wheat green yield-increase model research field. In early June, reporters followed the Ministry of Agriculture's expert guidance group to conduct on-site yield sampling and witnessed how wheat under Qihe County's “green” planting model reduced fertilizer and pesticide use without reducing output in this summer's production.
Zeng Yande said that the action to achieve zero growth in China's chemical fertilizer and pesticide use by 2020 is being rolled out nationwide. For a long time, China's chemical fertilizer use was relatively high. Over the 35 years from 1979 to 2013, China's chemical fertilizer use increased from 10.86 million tons to 59.12 million tons. In recent years, due to vigorous promotion of soil testing and formula fertilization, the growth rate of chemical fertilizer use is gradually declining to a level of 1.5 percent. Pesticide use averaged 311,000 tons per year from 2012 to 2014. Reducing chemical fertilizers and pesticides, cutting unreasonable fertilization and pesticide application, improving utilization efficiency, and taking the path of cost-saving, efficiency-increasing and sustainable development brook no delay.
Mode transformation: the shift is toward green research. “I have used all the techniques - straw return to the field, efficient combined application of nitrogen and potassium, and integrated control of fusarium head blight.” As one of 15 thousand-mu wheat green yield-increase model demonstration areas in Guoyang County, Anhui Province, major grain grower Sun Zifu spoke with great satisfaction about green yield-increase techniques. Since last year, in accordance with the ideas and requirements of the green yield-increase model, the locality has integrated a total of 58 high-yield, high-efficiency technical models, each focused on “one control, two reductions and three basics,” truly breaking through the bottlenecks in grain production and greatly improving resource utilization.
Transforming the mode: the shift is toward reusing straw. Straw burning is a long-standing problem, and localities guide and handle the straw issue through crushing and returning it to the field, biomass energy, papermaking and power generation. This year, in Jiyukou Town, Qianjiang City, Hubei Province, straw burning is no longer seen, because all the straw is being recycled and used. Liu Changhua, director of the Hubei Provincial Agricultural Machinery Bureau, said that this year Hubei's mechanized straw return area alone exceeded 20 million mu, increasing soil organic matter, enhancing the soil's capacity to store water and conserve moisture, and promoting increased agricultural production and efficiency.