China's agriculture produces 1.4 trillion jin of straw annually; comprehensive utilization needs improvement
China is a major grain-producing country, and also a major straw-producing country. According to statistics, the energy of crop fruits and the energy of straw are roughly equal in quantity. Recently, at a seminar on China's “12th Five-Year Plan” circular agriculture development and comprehensive utilization of crop straw policy, hosted by the Resource and Environmental Policy Research Institute of the Development Research Center of the State Council, experts reached a consensus: improve the comprehensive development and utilization rate of crop straw.
The sustained haze weather some time ago drew everyone's high attention to the pollution problem. Although straw burning is not the direct cause of haze, the problem of rural non-point source pollution caused by crop straw burning is an indisputable fact. Every year during the summer harvest and the turn of autumn and winter, large amounts of straw from wheat, corn and other crops is burned in the fields, producing large amounts of thick smoke, which has not only become a bottleneck problem for rural environmental protection, but has even become the chief culprit harming the urban environment.
China's agriculture produces more than 1,000 billion jin of grain each year, and produces more than 1,400 billion jin of straw. How to deal with the piles of straw has become a big headache for farmers and local officials. These “wastes” that seem “of little use” but must be disposed of are left entirely to farmers to handle, resulting in the phenomenon of large-scale burning. What should be done?
At present, many developed countries, through scientific and technological innovation, have found multiple uses for the comprehensive development and utilization of crop straw. In addition to the traditional practice of crushing straw and returning it to the field as organic fertilizer, they can also produce new products such as straw feed, straw gasification, straw power generation, straw ethanol, and straw building materials.
Many places in China have also actively explored and creatively adopted many good methods. For example, using straw to produce formaldehyde-free series straw boards, widely used as base materials for high-grade furniture, high-grade packaging, and high-grade building materials; encouraging farmers to expand the scale of breeding so that straw becomes coarse feed for cattle and sheep; using the principles and technology of straw gasification to promote straw biogas projects in rural areas; using straw to make paper, and so on. Among these, straw papermaking has the highest utilization rate, but the pollution produced by traditional processes is also the most serious. According to experts, the new “straw chemi-mechanical pulp” papermaking process and technology invented by Beijing Wuxing Tengda New Energy Technology Development Co., Ltd. can effectively solve the pollution problem and has obtained a national patent. After this technology is widely promoted, it can bring about a new technological revolution in straw papermaking, not only increasing farmers' income but also protecting the ecological environment.
At present, because the technology for straw utilization is not yet perfect, policy and capital investment are insufficient, and market operation is still far from adequate, the efficiency and benefits of comprehensive straw utilization need to be improved. But the prospects for comprehensive straw development are very good. According to expert estimates: if 50% of China's annual straw can be converted, it will be a huge emerging industry, can absorb a large amount of rural labor, bring considerable income to farmers, and recover that half of the harvest that agriculture had already produced but was previously discarded.