Intensive Cultivation of Arable Land, Awakening Existing Land Resources

Editor's Note: Land is the most fundamental element for developing agricultural production. Making efficient use of land resources and strictly adhering to the red line for arable land are of great significance for safeguarding national food security, optimizing the agricultural industrial structure, and raising farmers' incomes. Many localities and reclamation areas have brought idle arable land into concentrated use and revitalized existing construction land, reinvigorating land resources. As the national team of agriculture, agricultural reclamation has blazed trails and developed its own “style” in areas such as protecting arable land to boost agricultural production and revitalizing construction land to build industrial parks. Especially in cooperation between reclamation areas and local governments, not only have agricultural workers in the reclamation areas enjoyed the benefits, but surrounding farmers have also shared in the dividends brought by land generating “gold.”

Raising arable land output, revitalizing existing construction land to build industrial parks, Anhui Agricultural Reclamation Longkang Farm——

Not reducing a single unit of arable land, not leaving a single inch of land idle

At Anhui Agricultural Reclamation Longkang Farm, intensive land use to develop modern agriculture, revitalizing construction land to carry out new urbanization, and cooperation between the reclamation area and local governments to jointly build an economic development zone have not only enabled farm workers to contract more land, grow more grain, and move into new buildings, but have also driven surrounding rural areas to jointly build industrial parks, using industrialization to drive urbanization and enabling large numbers of farmers to find nearby employment.

Farm worker Wei Qun is a beneficiary of efficient land use and has shared in the dividends of land generating “gold.” In 2014, through land transfer, Wei Qun contracted 180 mu of arable land for high-yield “wheat-rice rotation” planting. The average yields of wheat and rice were 510 kg and 700 kg per mu respectively, and that year he pocketed 420,000 yuan in net profit.

Arable land concentrated among large-scale operators, improving farming efficiency

Agriculture is the farm's main business and the foundation of its establishment. In recent years, Longkang Farm has invested nearly 300 million yuan to strengthen farmland infrastructure. The farm's arable land has now formed a modern standardized farmland layout with fields in squares, forests in networks, connected canals, linked roads, fertile soil, hardened canals, and complete irrigation and drainage facilities.

The farm has about 30,000 mu of arable land planted year-round with major crops, while it has 1,585 workers, leaving less than 20 mu of arable land per capita. To solve the problem of too many people and too little land and low land output, the farm carried out reform of the agricultural management system, focusing on land.

The farm took improving the comparative efficiency of agriculture as its main direction. Through land transfer, it vigorously cultivated new types of operating entities such as large growers and professional cooperatives, increased workers' income, and boosted surrounding farmers' grain-growing efficiency.

They gradually recovered land from retirees, management personnel, and workers with low farming ability, consolidated these farmlands into contiguous tracts, and, following the principle of appropriately scaled operation, openly tendered leases in units of 200-300 mu to skilled farmers, while transferring agricultural workers freed from the land to secondary and tertiary industries.

At present, only 420 workers on the farm are engaged solely in agricultural planting, and there are 65 large growers with more than 200 mu of arable land. Because land has achieved scaled operation, the farm's agricultural production has accelerated toward specialization, standardization, mechanization, intensification, informatization, and industrialization. In 2014, the average yield of the farm's 30,000 mu of wheat remained stable at 580 kg, among which the 10,000-mu high-yield wheat demonstration plot reached 648 kg per mu.

The farm encourages workers to develop high-efficiency agriculture and guides workers to turn “entitlement fields” into “high-efficiency fields.” In addition to ensuring grain field area, it also develops fruit and vegetable industries according to local conditions. At present, the farm has established 23 planting professional cooperatives, forming a high-efficiency agricultural cluster mainly based on large-scale greenhouse watermelon planting.

The Yandaihu Planting Cooperative develops the greenhouse watermelon industry and implements intensive contiguous land planting. Although this cooperative accounts for less than 13% of the farm's crop planting area, its output value accounts for 43% of returns, and workers growing watermelons increased their income by nearly 9,000 yuan per mu.

Revitalizing construction land, achieving both comfortable living and stable work

Longkang Farm's built-up urban area covers 2.5 square kilometers and has a resident population of 30,000. It has become a distribution center for agricultural and sideline products and agricultural production materials, as well as an economic, cultural, and information center within a local area of 900 square kilometers. In revitalizing existing construction land, they use industrialization to drive urbanization and improve the utilization rate of commercial land in the market.

In recent years, the farm has implemented a rolling urban development plan. While revitalizing existing urban construction land resources, it has also used internal replacement of land quotas to promote the development and construction of new urban districts.

Following market-oriented operations, the farm established Anhui Longkang Real Estate Development Company. Through public bidding, auction, and listing, it revitalized 194.5 mu of urban land and successively built projects including the Longkang Farmers' Market, Rose Garden Residential Community, and Tonghe · Bishuiwan Residential Community, completing more than 2,800 residential and commercial units and achieving sales revenue of 450 million yuan, driving 250 million yuan in social investment. While improving farm workers' living conditions, it also solved the problem of more than 10,000 farmers moving into the town to live and start businesses, achieving “industry-city integration” in the efficient use of land.

Zhu Xinquan, general manager of Longkang Real Estate Development Company, said: “The company will seize the opportunity of new urbanization. In addition to improving farm workers' living conditions, it will also gradually enable surrounding farmers to move into town and live in buildings, so that while enjoying ‘comfortable living,’ they can better enjoy ‘stable work.’”

Entrepreneurship park releases land vitality; land-use quotas still need support

On the basis of the entrepreneurship park's development, Longkang Farm joined hands with surrounding Huaiyuan County to jointly build the Longkang Economic Development Zone, aiming to build an “industry-city integrated” industrial new district and create a western “growth pole” for Huaiyuan County's economy. Investment and construction are based on the entrepreneurship park on the farm's state-owned land. In accordance with the requirements of industry-city integration, urban-rural coordination, land conservation, and livability and workability, it strives to build an industrial cluster with distinctive industrial features and strong competitiveness, a pioneering zone for development, opening-up, and institutional innovation, and a new urban district with complete functions and a beautiful environment.

At present, 23 enterprises have settled in the entrepreneurship park, and 18 projects have been introduced, involving industries such as food processing, grain storage, and ecological breeding, attracting more than 5,400 surrounding farmers for employment.

In the practice of exploring efficient use of land resources, there are still some difficulties that farms themselves find hard to overcome: roads, canals, culverts, gates, bridges, and stations for high-standard basic farmland are not yet fully complete and cannot meet the requirements of modern agricultural development; insufficient construction land quotas have to some extent hindered the process of new urbanization. For this reason, the farm calls on relevant departments to further strengthen investment intensity in projects such as farm land improvement and comprehensive agricultural development, strengthen research on farm urban construction land, and scientifically and effectively allocate construction land quotas to ease the pressure of new urbanization development.