How can new models for putting agricultural technology into practice take root?
From the superior wheat variety “Bima No. 1”, the most widely promoted wheat variety in the world by cumulative area, to the distant-hybridization wheat variety “Xiaoyan No. 6”, which long led the replacement of wheat varieties in China, and on to the current high-yield, high-quality wheat variety “Xinong 979”, promoted on nearly 100 million mu, Northwest A&F University has introduced one major wheat variety after another, helping farmers increase their incomes and protecting the nation's food security.
In recent years, centering on major national and regional strategic needs, Northwest A&F University has persisted in actively carrying out applied basic and applied research oriented to the actual needs of agricultural production. It has formed distinctive features and strengths in research fields such as animal and plant breeding, plant protection, agricultural biotechnology, dryland agriculture and water-saving technology, and comprehensive management of soil and water loss on the Loess Plateau, and has obtained more than 5,000 scientific and technological achievements of various kinds.
How can these scientific and technological achievements be effectively transformed into productivity? As early as 2005, Northwest A&F University was the first in China to explore and practice a new university-based model for extending agricultural science and technology. It established 23 experimental and demonstration stations nationwide, involving grain, vegetables, fruit and more, with more than 500 faculty and researchers engaged in agricultural technology extension on the front lines of production and more than 200 disciplinary experts stationed year-round at the experimental and demonstration stations.
“Only by taking root in the vast fields can one truly know what is most needed there, and what kind of scientific research results can produce the best economic benefits,” said President Sun Qixin.
Relying on the experimental and demonstration stations, the university has trained a total of 450,000 grassroots agricultural technology personnel and farmers, guided the cultivation of more than 2,400 scientific and technological demonstration households, promoted more than 1,100 new agricultural varieties and new technologies in total, and generated more than 30 billion yuan in additional economic benefits, writing article after article of support for agriculture across the vast rural land.
Breaking the old system and exploring the establishment of a new extension model
Since the beginning of the new century, in response to modern agriculture's demand for science and technology, Northwest A&F University has fully taken into account the characteristics of agriculture such as ecological regionality, timeliness of production, environmental variability and dispersion of operating entities, as well as the reality that Chinese farmers' scientific and cultural quality is relatively low and their awareness of and ability to accept new technologies is lacking. It has gradually explored and established a new university-based model for extending agricultural science and technology, proposing that independent technological innovation be taken as the core and that, through the four-wheel drive of technological innovation, technology demonstration, technical training and information dissemination, science and technology truly take root and bear fruit in rural industrial development.
Northwest A&F University has continuously highlighted its function of serving “agriculture, rural areas and farmers” institutionally: it specially established an Office of Science and Technology Extension in its institutional setup to carry out various science and technology extension and technical service work for rural areas; according to the development needs of different agricultural industries, it optimized the allocation of the university's science and technology extension resources and formed a number of distinctive science and technology extension teams for wheat, vegetables, apples, beef cattle and more, forming a science and technology extension team of more than 500 people; it set up a special fund for agricultural science and technology extension to support scientific and technical personnel in carrying out extension work; it incorporated science and technology extension into the talent evaluation system, strengthening the guidance and incentive mechanisms for extension work; and it established the “Extension Expert Support Program” to support scientific and technical personnel who have long engaged in extension work in rural areas and produced important impact.
In recent years, Shaanxi's fruit industry has developed by leaps and bounds, becoming the country's largest producing province and a powerful tool for farmers to escape poverty and become rich. Heyang grapes, Luochuan apples and Meixian kiwifruit have become deeply embedded in the minds of consumers, and the experimental stations built in these fruit regions play a huge role in variety testing, cultivation demonstration and extension.
At the Baishui Apple Experimental Station, Professor Du Zhihui of the College of Plant Protection at Northwest A&F University told reporters that, on the one hand, the station must keep up with apple development trends and breed superior varieties, such as crossing Fuji, which tastes good but has low yield and relatively poor resistance, with Qinguan, which has poor quality but high yield and good resistance, to breed new varieties with excellent yield and quality; more importantly, on the other hand, in response to local soil, climate and other conditions, it must test out the best cultivation methods and, through demonstration, let farmers see the results, making extension fast, convenient and more efficient.
In recent years, combining the needs of regional agricultural leading industries, Northwest A&F University has successively established 23 experimental and demonstration stations, including Baishui apple, Yanliang melon, Meixian kiwifruit, Xixiang tea, Ankang aquaculture, Shanyang walnut and chestnut, Qingjian red date, Yanliang vegetables, Heyang grapes, Luochuan apple and Fengxian Sichuan pepper, and established 40 experimental and demonstration bases in 36 cities and counties across 15 provinces. In accordance with the requirements of industrialized development, these experimental stations have established production standards and technical specifications from “land” to “table”, providing farmers with full-process technical services in every link, including varieties, fertilization, irrigation, pest and disease control, storage, preservation, processing and sales.
Using these experimental stations (bases) as “connection points”, the university organizes extension teams, achieving the docking of university experts with local science and technology extension personnel; organizes scientific research, achieving the docking of various research topics with agricultural production problems; organizes technology extension, achieving the docking of technical services with farmers' needs; and organizes student internships, promoting the docking of classroom teaching with production practice.
Planning for a big future and innovating a new mechanism for university-local co-construction. Following the idea of building permanent experimental and demonstration stations, Northwest A&F University launched and implemented a new mechanism of university-local “co-construction and co-management” in 2011. The construction and operation management of experimental and demonstration stations (bases) gradually shifted from the past model of “the university as the main body investing in construction and operation management” to a new model of “the locality as the main body investing in construction, with university-local co-construction and co-management”.
In 2014, the university and the Yangling Demonstration Zone took the lead, joining with agricultural research institutions in 10 cities in Shaanxi, to initiate and establish the “Shaanxi Agricultural Collaborative Innovation and Extension Alliance”, achieving coordinated integration of agricultural science and technology resources between universities and cities. Regarding the establishment of this alliance, local governments and research and extension departments showed great enthusiasm and urgent attention.
For the Luochuan Apple Experimental and Demonstration Station, the Yan'an Municipal Government provided 150 mu of land free of charge, invested 6 million yuan in facility construction funds, and provided 500,000 yuan per year for alliance extension work funds; for the Longxian Walnut Experimental and Demonstration Base, the Longxian Government invested 4 million yuan to build infrastructure, and the city and county levels provided 500,000 yuan per year for demonstration and extension work funds.
The Qianyang Apple Experimental and Demonstration Station implements a new mechanism of tripartite cooperative co-construction by the university, city and county. The university provides the station with 300,000 yuan per year in operating funds and 700,000 yuan in research project funds from the Ministry of Agriculture, and selects an expert team led by Li Bingzhi, director of the Cultivation Office of the National Apple Industry System, to conduct experimental, demonstration and extension work on new apple industry technologies based in Qianyang and oriented to Baoji; Baoji City and Qianyang County, while providing 60 mu of land and buildings free of charge, provide 500,000 yuan per year in demonstration and extension funds to the station, and select city and county agricultural technology personnel to participate, with the three parties cooperating to carry out technical services across the entire industrial chain. After the station was built in 2012, it adopted the new science and technology extension model of “experimental station + leading enterprise + demonstration household”, guiding the local enterprise Haisheng Company to build 10,000 mu of high-standard fully dwarfing-rootstock apple demonstration orchards, using large seedlings to establish orchards and achieving the remarkable benefit of 500-1,500 kg per mu in the second year after the orchard was established in the first year. It promoted the new construction of more than 100,000 mu of dwarfing-rootstock apples in Qianyang County, which became the county with the fastest domestic extension speed for this new technology. In April 2014, after investigating in Qianyang County, Zhao Zhengyong, Secretary of the Shaanxi Provincial Party Committee, instructed that the dwarfing-rootstock apple demonstration and extension carried out by the Qianyang Apple Experimental and Demonstration Station of Northwest A&F University “is an important model for the upgrading and transformation of the apple industry. Demonstration orchards should be promoted in all apple-producing counties. In the new round of apple industry development, our province should still maintain its leading position”.
Serving the new countryside, staying grounded, and achieving abundant results in supporting agriculture
The vast rural land is the true “experimental field” for university experts to realize technological innovation and meet production needs. In this large “experimental field”, the university's experts have made breakthroughs in a number of key technologies urgently needed by farmers. Over the past 10 years, the university's experimental stations have carried out more than 150 experimental studies in total, bred 25 new varieties, and achieved important technological breakthroughs in fields including wheat, corn, rapeseed, vegetables, apples, kiwifruit, walnuts, melons, red dates and aquaculture.
Establishing demonstration models and examples so that farmers can see them, touch them and learn by following the examples is an important means of science and technology extension. Zhao Shangli of the Liangshan Nongfu Cooperative in Qianxian grows dwarfing apples, achieving a yield of more than 10,000 jin per mu and an income of more than 20,000 yuan per mu. He said that in his orchard he adopted exactly what he learned from the experimental station, planting rapeseed in winter to increase soil organic matter and establishing integrated water and fertilizer facilities, and only then did he harvest a bumper crop.
Training agricultural technology backbone personnel so that farmers truly become new-era farmers who understand technology and management is an important part of agricultural science and technology extension work. Over the past 10 years, based in rural areas, the experimental stations have trained a total of 72,000 grassroots cadres and technicians and 450,000 farmers, and a number of industry leaders have emerged. The persons in charge of the Yanliang District Kenong Melon and Vegetable Professional Cooperative, the Baishui County Xianguo Association and the Qingjian County Yuanlin Red Date Development Co., Ltd., which have a certain influence in Shaanxi, are all scientific and technological demonstration households guided by the experimental stations. Two farmers, Cao Jiehu and Hui Guohai, once appeared at Harvard University's “Agriculture and Food Forum” in 2010, telling the story of how they became rich through science and technology, which aroused a warm response.