How can chemical fertilizers, pesticides and agricultural machinery help sustainable agricultural development?
To help agriculture achieve sustainable development, what can the agricultural input industry do? On March 27, the China Brand Agricultural Input Conference hosted by Farmers' Daily invited authoritative experts and enterprise representatives in the agricultural input field to hold in-depth discussions on the themes of the zero-growth action for chemical fertilizer and pesticide use and the integration of agricultural machinery and agronomy, and to jointly offer suggestions for promoting the healthy development of the industry and the transformation and upgrading of agriculture.
Sustainable agricultural development must take a new path of cost reduction and efficiency improvement
Chemical fertilizers and pesticides are important agricultural production inputs in China and play an important role in China's agricultural production. But in recent years, long-term and large-scale use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides has also affected the sustainable development of agriculture.
“China is a major agricultural country, and its use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides ranks first in the world, but the utilization rates of pesticides and fertilizers are both around 30%. For fertilizers it is 35%, among which nitrogen fertilizer is 33%, phosphate fertilizer is 24%, and potassium fertilizer is 42%. The excess, or effectively unused, chemical fertilizer remains in the soil, so the land becomes more and more ‘thin’ as it is planted.” Chen Shengdou, director of the National Agricultural Technology Extension Service Center, said that in order to ensure the sustainable development of agriculture, ensure the quality and safety of agricultural products, and protect our ecological environment, it is necessary to take reduction actions on agricultural inputs.
“We often say pesticides are a double-edged sword. Let me give you another analogy: pesticides are bullets, plant protection machinery is the gun, and plant protection technology is how to fire the gun. Using the same pesticides, why can developed European and American countries reach 50%? What does this show? Our bullets are good, but the gun is not good, and the technique for firing the gun is also not good.” He Xiongkui, director of the Center for Pesticide Machinery and Fertilization Technology at China Agricultural University, pointed out that many of the manual sprayers currently used in China are products from the last century. This kind of sprayer has been used on thousands of crops and hundreds of pesticides for many generations. These products were already forcibly phased out abroad last century. The main problem with this kind of sprayer is uneven spraying. In addition, application technology is not scientific enough, and there is often re-spraying or missed spraying. Re-sprayed areas often have residues, while missed areas do not receive enough pesticide effect. After a few days, pests and diseases come back, and that is the problem.
At the meeting, several experts agreed that implementing the action to reduce chemical fertilizers and pesticides is a necessary choice for China's sustainable agricultural development. The old path of relying on resource consumption no longer works, and a new path of cost reduction and efficiency improvement must be taken.
There are conditions and a foundation for achieving the zero-growth target
How can we both ensure bumper grain harvests and effective prevention and control of crop pests and diseases, and also bring down the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides?
⟦NL> Chen Shengdou said that to achieve the zero-growth target for chemical fertilizers and pesticides, there are both foundations and conditions. Previously our chemical fertilizer use growth rate was above 5.2%. In recent years, through soil testing and formulated fertilization, the fertilizer use growth rate has dropped to around 1.5%. Starting from 2015, if the growth rate is controlled at 1%, through continuous efforts combined with other supporting measures, it is hoped that this can be achieved by 2020. In recent years, pesticides have achieved remarkable results through unified prevention and control and green prevention and control, and enterprises have also developed more new products. In the next step, application machinery should be changed from the manual type of the past to efficient application machinery, and pesticide use will naturally decrease. He said: “The integrated water and fertilizer approach we are currently working on can also reduce usage. Our research found that an enterprise in Hebei has explored a new method in Xinjiang that can achieve the integration of fertilizer, water and pesticides, which can further reduce costs and reduce pesticide and fertilizer use.”
He Xiongkui believes that efficient plant protection machinery is a key to reducing pesticide use. “We have many good pesticide products, that is one point. Second, boom sprayers have been widely used and included in fiscal subsidies. For tall crops such as corn and sugarcane, we have efficient machinery with ground clearance of more than 2 m, a spray width of 36 m, and a 10-ton tank. When application efficiency improves, pesticide utilization naturally becomes higher. On large farms, manned aircraft plant protection has already been applied on a scale. For example, Jiamusi has the world's largest aerial spraying station, with 83 aircraft, at a world-class level. In southern rice areas, hilly areas and small farms, China's plant protection machinery has a leapfrog product, namely drones. Last year more than 2,000 units were sold, and the momentum is very good, and the products are good too. It can treat one mu of land in one minute. How high an efficiency is that? With these advanced plant protection machines and tools that run on the ground and fly in the sky, pesticide reduction can certainly be achieved.” he said.
The reduction action is an opportunity for agricultural input enterprises
What kind of impact will the zero-growth action for chemical fertilizers and pesticides have on agricultural input enterprises? Is it pressure or motivation? How can better development be achieved? Yang Botao, vice president of Qingdao Hailir Pharmaceutical Group, has his own views on this.
“The pesticide reduction plan is a good thing for our pesticide enterprises. It can reduce costs for farmers, protect the ecological environment, and optimize the industry structure. Although the overall market usage has decreased somewhat, for excellent pesticide enterprises, it is a good opportunity for market expansion and brand enhancement.” Yang Botao believes that to help reduce pesticide use, enterprises can make contributions in two aspects. First, research and develop efficient, environmentally friendly and advanced products and technologies. Second, provide good technical services so that farmers truly use pesticides scientifically and reasonably, reducing the previous phenomenon in which pesticides were used in large amounts but with poor results simply because of channel recommendations or only cost considerations.
Yang Botao introduced that Hailir has always attached importance to technology and new product research and development at the front end, and to promotion services at the end, solving pest and disease control problems for farmers in a practical way, letting farmers know how to use good products, reducing unnecessary losses, and changing the habit of buying low-priced products just to save money. “We are now also preparing to build a 1,000-mu standard demonstration base, and have a dedicated team exploring the promotion and use of drones. We work with agricultural departments at all levels to conduct scientific pesticide use training. Through field training, farmers can see that our products can indeed increase production and income and save costs. Previously one bottle of several hundred milliliters was used; now one bag of 10 milliliters or 20 milliliters can still solve the problem. This requires us to persist in going to the fields and doing a large number of demonstration trials, so that farmers recognize the advantages of the products and sales are driven.”
Chen Junrong, chairman of Yunda Technology Agrochemical Co., Ltd., said that the company began thinking several years ago about how to reduce pesticide use and invested a lot of funds. It achieved a breakthrough in using physical methods to control pests and diseases. At present it has developed an early-stage product that can effectively prevent and control pests and diseases and is non-toxic and harmless. When applied, it can greatly reduce pesticide use. He suggested that support should be given to product innovation in the registration and management of new pesticides.
Pesticide reduction and precise fertilizer application cannot be separated from agricultural machinery
Several experts mentioned, without prior coordination, the important role of agricultural machinery in reducing chemical fertilizers and pesticides.
Wu Chongyou, director of the Technical Center of the Nanjing Institute of Agricultural Mechanization under the Ministry of Agriculture, said: “The amount of pesticides and chemical fertilizers must be reduced, but the effect cannot be discounted. In addition to relying on the pesticides and fertilizers themselves, this also depends on agricultural machinery. Without agricultural machinery, pesticide reduction and precise fertilizer application cannot be achieved.”
“The reduction of chemical fertilizers and pesticides is inseparable from agricultural machinery. Because of unreasonable choices of agricultural machinery and implements, great harm has been brought about by excessive use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides.” Yu Jiahua, general manager of Shandong Changlin Ingersoll Rand Machinery Manufacturing Co., Ltd., gave examples. For instance, in the process of land preparation, unreasonable selection of implements creates hidden dangers for weed damage and causes waste in fertilization. Fertilization for dryland crops must be applied to the soil moisture layer. If it does not reach the soil moisture layer, no matter how much chemical fertilizer is applied, it will not work. This is the impact of implements on fertilizers. In addition, when crop straw is returned to the field, because corn straw contains many insect eggs, if the machinery is improperly selected and only the straw is crushed without effective mixing with the soil, the straw cannot decompose, and pests and diseases will increase year by year, increasing pesticide use. Therefore, to achieve reduction of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, we must first start with the configuration of agricultural machinery and implements and the reasonable selection of operating machinery, and improve the level of operation.
“To truly give play to the role of agricultural machinery in agricultural production, it is necessary to add agronomic integration on the basis of advanced equipment.” Wu Chongyou emphasized that agricultural machinery without agronomy has no target, and agronomy without agricultural machinery is empty talk. A very good example is cotton harvesting. It is not that buying advanced foreign cotton pickers will solve the problem of machine-picked cotton. A very important point is to plant cotton according to the requirements of machine-picked cotton, including variety selection and breeding, row spacing for planting, and control of plant height and defoliation. Some steps must be achieved through chemical control with pesticides before machine-picked cotton can be completed; otherwise, no matter how advanced the machine is, it cannot solve the problem. Therefore, the integration of agricultural machinery and agronomy is an important lever and entry point for advancing agricultural modernization and reducing input of agricultural input products.