Agricultural modernization gives agriculture wings to soar

The vast Changbai forest sea builds an ecological barrier for food security; the dense network of fertile black soil on the Songnen Plain, where flood and drought are managed by irrigation, and the green curtain-like crop fields are lush and verdant; deep in the Horqin grasslands, organic rice, healthy beans, premium meat, and ecological fish nurtured by large wetlands are sold across the country.

Jilin's position in China's food security cannot be underestimated: for more than ten years, grain output has increased year after year, and last year it jumped to fourth place nationwide, with multiple indicators such as grain yield per unit area, per capita grain availability, and commodity rate ranking first in the country.

Amid the joy of bumper harvests, Jilin, based on its own realities, squarely faces the difficulties of “agriculture, rural areas, and farmers,” continuously consolidates the grain production system, improves the industrial system, invigorates the management system, and gathers strong momentum for the leap from a major traditional agricultural province to a strong modern agricultural province, striving to be a “pathfinder” in modern agriculture.

Breaking Through on Two Paths to Consolidate the Foundation of Food Security

In 1999, grain in Northeast China was “heavily stockpiled” at that time, Jilin's grain output was only 46.1 billion jin, while last year grain output reached 70.6 billion jin, yet there was no difficulty in selling grain.

The national temporary corn storage purchase policy provided a “bottom-line” guarantee for major agricultural provinces. “For one hectare of land, under normal conditions corn output can reach 27,000 to 28,000 jin, with net income above 15,000. Except for those who go to cities to work, farmers across the county generally cultivate about one hectare per person, and the income level can sustain farmers' enthusiasm for farming.” Feng Shanguo, secretary of the Yushu Municipal Party Committee, in the country's largest grain-producing county, calculated a land output account for reporters. But compared with the hard labor of facing the yellow earth with one's back to the sky, this income's comparative benefit is still not very high.

While stabilizing the grain planting area, Jilin treats improving grain quality and efficiency as an important task: focusing on optimizing the agricultural industrial structure, based on Jilin's resource endowments and industrial foundation, accelerating the development of the agricultural product processing industry, extending the industrial chain, promoting deep processing, and advancing agricultural transformation and upgrading. Since 2000, Jilin has formed nearly 15 million tons of corn deep-processing capacity, about 63% of corn can be digested locally, producing more than 200 kinds of products such as starch and alcohol, multiplying benefits.

Abundant and green agricultural, livestock, and fish products attract leading enterprises at home and abroad to invest in Jilin agriculture, opening new development space for improving agricultural quality and efficiency. Not long ago, the 300,000-ton-per-year high-end feed project of the world Fortune 500 company British Associated Agriculture Group was put into production. Enterprise manager Gao Yi told reporters: “Agricultural enterprises cluster in Jilin mainly because of the predictable development potential.”

At present, large domestic leading enterprises such as Hope and Anbang have settled in Jilin, and provincial-level agricultural industrialization leading enterprises have reached 503, including 47 national-level ones.

Located in the world's “golden rice belt,” but due to scattered brand resources and insufficient marketing, Jilin rice has low visibility in the national market and has even become the raw material base for “famous rice” from some provinces. Jilin implements the “healthy rice” project, establishes a special fund for rice brand promotion, and strategically cooperates with Taobao to promote online sales, so safe, nutritious, and delicious Jilin rice appears more and more in the public eye.

From being dominated by primary industry to full industrial chain development, Jilin's modern agricultural industrial system has begun to shift from quantity expansion to connotative growth. Today, the agricultural product processing industry has become one of Jilin's three pillar industries alongside automobiles and petrochemicals, with annual sales revenue exceeding 450 billion yuan, accounting for one third of Jilin's total economy.

Science and Technology Enter Farmland to Safeguard Improved Agricultural Efficiency

Cao Xuejun, a farmer in Tongyu County, once suffered greatly from “drought in nine out of ten years.” With little precipitation and high evaporation, Tongyu's average effective precipitation over the past decade was only 253 mm, while the grain output gap between abundant-water and water-scarce years reached 40%. In 2014, with the first use of drip irrigation under film, Cao Xuejun's yield per hectare increased by 50%, “getting rid of reliance on the weather, every year is a good year.”

Large and medium-sized irrigation and drainage backbone projects, high-efficiency water-saving irrigation projects, and small farmland water conservancy projects. Jilin spares no effort in investing to improve agricultural production conditions. The province's effective irrigated farmland area grew by 15% over 10 years to nearly 30 million mu, basically forming a water conservancy guarantee system that saves water and increases efficiency and adapts to the normalization of drought.

Jilin clearly recognizes that developing modern agriculture must consolidate the production system and requires support from scientific and technological innovation, agricultural mechanization, and complete supporting facilities.

Last year, Jilin's agricultural production encountered low-temperature cold damage in spring and local drought in summer and autumn. The “integrated” application of multiple agricultural technologies such as carefully selected superior varieties, comprehensive pest and disease control, and no-till methods increased the dry field yield of the Luwei Agricultural Machinery Farmers' Professional Cooperative in Lishu County by 2,000 jin per hectare, achieving “counter-trend”增产 in a disaster year.

“The integrated assembly and combination of modern agricultural high-yield and high-efficiency technologies greatly reduces the impact of weather, pests, and diseases on agricultural production, ensuring good crop growth.” Wang Guiman, deputy director of the Lishu County Agriculture Bureau, said that if in the next 3 to 5 years the technological “integration” achieves full coverage, calculated at an increase of 8,000 jin per hectare, Lishu will increase grain by more than 2 billion jin.

Black soil is a globally scarce resource. Jilin invested more than 300 million yuan to launch a pilot project for black soil protection and governance, focusing on projects such as conservation tillage and soil organic matter improvement.

In western Jilin, windblown, saline-alkali, and arid, 6.2 billion yuan was invested to launch the “river-lake connectivity project,” regulating and coordinating water resources across the region, controlling floods and draining waterlogged areas, resisting drought and increasing grain. Ecological water replenishment has gradually reduced sand and salinity in this area, turning it from white to green, restoring more than 700 square kilometers of wetland area, and raising the groundwater level by more than 1 m on average. Baicheng, once glaring white with saline-alkali soil, now has nearly 2 million mu of rice planting area, and in the coming years will reach 3 million mu, becoming a new grain growth pole for our country.

Overall Guidance: Do Agriculture Like Industry

After household land contracting, the vast fertile fields were divided into small units like a “patchwork quilt.” Decentralized operation by each household made it impossible for machinery to be fully used, government services difficult to extend, grain quality unsuited to market sales, and output discounted.

Jilin's average cultivated land per household is 1.67 hectares, more than twice the national average. It has a good foundation and broad prospects for advancing rural land circulation and moderate-scale operation in accordance with the law, voluntarily, and with compensation. Organizing scattered farmers, intensifying scattered production, and cooperating in scattered operations: building a new agricultural management system is Jilin's answer for deeply tapping the potential of grain production increase.

“This year's spring plowing, chemical fertilizer was 2,370 yuan per ton, 700 yuan cheaper than the market price; seed input was 700 yuan per hectare, 300 yuan cheaper than the market price. These two items alone saved nearly 300,000 yuan in input.” Xie Dalin, manager of the Changhe Agricultural Machinery Planting Professional Cooperative in Yushu City, operates 3,100 mu of cultivated land and is very grateful for the government's support for scale operation. He said that concentrated contiguous land operation lets them dare to invest in agricultural machinery, and new varieties and new technologies can also be applied, with output 10% higher than household planting.

In Yushu, turning land “from scattered to integrated” and scale operation have brought revolutionary changes in operation methods. Zhang Xue, director of the Yushu City Agriculture Bureau, said that the locality uses various land circulation methods such as cooperative trusteeship operation as a lever for modern agriculture, and has guided the establishment of 3,200 cooperatives, operating 2.15 million mu of contiguous land of more than 100 mu, with 38.3% of cultivated land under concentrated contiguous operation. After contiguous planting, unified planting, promotion of improved varieties, and technology entering fields generally increase returns by more than 20%. Product standardization is conducive to market sales, and the comprehensive grain production capacity and ability to withstand natural and market risks are stronger. Weak-quality agriculture has caught the express train of modernization through scale operation.

At present, 24% of cultivated land in Jilin Province has been transferred to new agricultural operation entities such as large grain growers, family farms, and farmers' professional cooperatives.

Support policies lean toward new agricultural operation entities. “In 2014, we explored and innovated the method of agricultural machinery purchase subsidies, focusing on major grain-producing counties, new agricultural operation entities, and weak links, with open subsidies.” Li Guoqiang, director of the Jilin Provincial Agriculture Commission, said that the state supported 1.3 billion yuan in subsidy funds, of which no less than 30% was used for new agricultural operation entities. In the future, Jilin will further advance moderate-scale agricultural operation in an orderly manner and strengthen land circulation management and services. At present, Jilin's comprehensive mechanization level of crop cultivation, planting, and harvesting has reached 77.8%, ranking among the top in the country.

Another task is being carried out in an orderly manner in Jilin Province: brand building.

Good products should sell for good prices. In addition to guiding farmers to establish market concepts, government assistance is indispensable. Starting last year, the Jilin Provincial Government established a “rice fund” to encourage producers to set up direct-sale rice stores across the country and carry out promotion and sales activities. At present, Jilin Province has 42 geographical indication trademarks for agricultural products. Agricultural products have “names” and “surnames,” which is conducive to market sales and the building of modern agriculture.

The development of mountain products such as ginseng in the east, packaging of miscellaneous grains in the west, and deep processing and branding of high-quality agricultural products such as corn and rice in the central region are bringing pollution-free, green, and organic foods closer and closer to the market, steadily improving agricultural efficiency. During a period of relatively great downward economic pressure, Jilin farmers' per capita net income has jumped to 11th place nationwide.