An effective path to set agriculture on the road of green development

Driven jointly by institutional change and technological progress, China's agriculture has achieved sustained long-term increases in output, especially the “eleven consecutive years of growth” in grain production, successfully realizing the goal of making agriculture “abundant,” with products such as corn and cotton even glutting warehouses, and products such as live pigs showing cyclical oversupply. However, under the extensive development model, the sustained long-term increase in agricultural output has come at a heavy cost to resources and the environment, and agricultural product quality and safety incidents have occurred repeatedly. Overall, the question of how agriculture can “go green” has not received sufficient attention or been effectively resolved. At present, China's agriculture is “not green enough,” mainly in two respects: industrial and urban pollution is being transferred and discharged to agriculture and rural areas, and the environmental quality of agricultural product production areas is cause for concern; excessive use of agricultural inputs such as chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and unreasonable disposal of agricultural waste such as livestock and poultry manure, crop straw and residual plastic film in farmland, have led to increasingly serious agricultural non-point source pollution, heightening the risk of soil and water body contamination.

The recently issued "Opinions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on Accelerating the Construction of Ecological Civilization" clearly requires adhering to the basic national policy of saving resources and protecting the environment, placing ecological civilization construction in a prominent strategic position, integrating it into all aspects and the entire process of economic, political, cultural and social construction, and coordinating the advancement of a new type of industrialization, informatization, urbanization, agricultural modernization and greenization. For the first time, greenization has become an important component of national modernization, and is of course also an important guideline and organic component of agricultural modernization; green development should become the new goal of agricultural development. The successful practice of Deqingyuan is a good illustration of the basic path of green agricultural development.

To achieve green agricultural development, modern science and technology must provide support. In recent years, there have been many misconceptions about agriculture, some of which have even spread widely and had considerable influence. For example, as long as agriculture is linked with green, many people will naturally think of organic agriculture, ecological agriculture and purely natural agriculture; as long as chemical fertilizers, pesticides and additives are mentioned, many people will instinctively feel aversion and rejection. It must be clearly recognized that achieving green agricultural development absolutely does not mean retreating to the traditional agriculture and primitive agriculture of the era before industrial civilization. Agriculture at that time was of course green, but how could that kind of agriculture possibly feed today's huge population! Crop farming without chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and livestock farming without feed and additives, can exist in small amounts, but cannot become the mainstream of the present era. According to experts' research on China's history of traditional agriculture over more than a thousand years, under conditions of no crop rotation and no fallow, using only human and livestock manure, and relying entirely on manual labor, achieving nitrogen balance would allow grain yields to reach only 100 kg per mu. This is far from the per-mu yields we have already achieved. The green agriculture we now pursue is essentially intensive agriculture supported by science and technology and based on modern inputs. Chemical fertilizers and pesticides are not monsters; the key lies in scientific fertilization and rational pesticide use. In the next stage of agricultural development, we must vigorously advance standardized production, expand the application of soil testing and formula fertilization in protected agriculture and horticultural crops such as vegetables, fruit trees and tea, and achieve full coverage of soil testing and formula fertilization for major crops as soon as possible; establish specialized pest and disease control service organizations with rapid response and efficient service, vigorously advance the integration of specialized unified prevention and control with green prevention and control, and effectively raise the level of organization of pest and disease control; promote technical models for the comprehensive utilization of livestock and poultry manure, and regulate and guide livestock and poultry farms in doing a good job of resource utilization of farming waste; and vigorously carry out straw return to fields and the utilization of straw as fertilizer, feed, substrate, raw material and energy.

To achieve green agricultural development, market mechanisms must provide the pull. Developing green agriculture requires a series of profound adjustments in input use, environmental protection, business organization and other aspects. Compared with agriculture that purely pursues output, the production cost of green agriculture is certainly much higher. To give producers the enthusiasm to develop green agriculture, they must receive sufficiently high returns. How can green agriculture be priced and consumers made to pay for green agricultural production? Deqingyuan's experience shows that cultivating agricultural product brands and attaching ecological labels to products is a feasible path. If consumers are willing to pay for green production, they will be willing to pay for trustworthy branded products. With brands, consumers can reduce information search costs and strengthen their willingness to buy. The degree of organization of agricultural production should also be raised, agricultural cooperatives should be developed, and farmer-supermarket direct supply should be advanced. One fewer link means one fewer risk. Especially in the Internet era, cultivating brands and farmer-supermarket direct supply to strengthen consumer confidence can be made more convenient.

To achieve green agricultural development, the government must act actively. Establish an agricultural policy system conducive to green development, shift as soon as possible from an output-increasing orientation to a sustainability orientation, and from relying mainly on resource consumption to resource conservation and environmental friendliness, taking the path of modern agricultural development with efficient output, safe products, resource conservation and environmental friendliness. Formulate and improve standards and technical specification systems for the production, operation and use of agricultural inputs, agricultural production technologies such as water saving, fertilizer saving and pesticide saving, and the monitoring and treatment of agricultural non-point source pollution. Improve incentive policies, and study and issue policy measures such as electricity for preliminary straw processing enjoying agricultural electricity prices, collection and storage land being included in agricultural land management, expanding the scope of tax preferences, and credit support. In response to the problems reflected by Deqingyuan, such as difficulty in connecting biomass power generation to the grid and difficulty in transporting biomass gas, active responses and solutions should be provided to mobilize the enthusiasm of leading enterprises to develop a circular economy. Strengthen the protection of agricultural product brands, eliminate free riding, and prevent bad money from driving out good money.