A trillion-yuan modern agriculture market opportunity awaits development
How agriculture can increase production, how farmers can increase income, how photovoltaic + agriculture can achieve a 1+1>2 effect…… On August 18, at the 2015 First China Photovoltaic Agriculture Development Summit Forum, attending experts offered suggestions and strategies on the new problems currently facing agricultural development. In particular, regarding the new development model of photovoltaic + agriculture that is widely followed by all sectors, they held heated discussions, with original viewpoints and novel insights.
Chen Hongbo, director of the Research Division of the Policy and Regulation Department of the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development, said: “As the cleanest, safest and most reliable energy, photovoltaic energy has already been made part of long-term planning by developed countries, which treat the development and utilization of solar energy as the main content of the energy revolution. The photovoltaic industry is increasingly becoming another explosively developing industry internationally after IT and the microelectronics industry. Photovoltaic energy has turned many farmers' dreams into reality. Photovoltaic + agriculture, photovoltaic + modern agriculture, conforms to the trend of the national development strategy. In the future, the combination of the two will produce a huge effect.”
“In the past, I went home after finishing work, but since becoming a maker, all my thoughts are now in my greenhouse.” On the day of the forum, local farmer maker Sun Yuntang said, “My annual income now is about twice what it was before.” The greenhouse Sun Yuntang referred to is based on nearly two mu of photovoltaic yin-yang greenhouses, radiating to six mu of surrounding land, with more than ten kinds of green leafy vegetables and mushrooms planted inside. Locally, more and more people like Sun Yuntang are transforming from former farmers and industrial workers into agricultural makers.
Li Jianzhi, chairman of Changsheng Group, which takes photovoltaic + agriculture as its main development line, said: “Photovoltaic agricultural science and technology greenhouses are the main form of combining photovoltaics with protected agriculture. This model builds high-standard protected greenhouses on rented farmland, generating power on the roof and planting below, without changing the nature of the original agricultural land, achieving multiple benefits at once. The combination of agriculture and photovoltaics is the general trend, and park-based and platform-based operation is the inevitable choice for giving play to the advantages of photovoltaic agriculture.”
The agricultural maker space has officially been put into operation, with plans to support 5 to 8 leading agricultural enterprises within three years, incubate more than 20 upstream and downstream enterprises in the industrial chain, train 30 to 50 family farm owners, and support 150 to 200 large growers.
“The best way to use solar energy is photovoltaic conversion, that is, using the photovoltaic effect. On this basis, agricultural plants are cultivated and grown. It is both low-carbon and environmentally friendly, and has high economic value.” said Wang Ke, a doctor from the School of Environment and Natural Resources at Renmin University of China. “As a trillion-yuan industry, modern agriculture has unlimited potential in the great development of innovation and entrepreneurship, and agricultural makers have already become the source of modern agricultural innovation. In the future, more farmers will devote themselves to it.”