Grain production achieves a record eleventh consecutive increase

The Central Rural Work Conference opened today and will study and arrange next year's work on agriculture, rural areas and farmers. The reporter learned from the Ministry of Agriculture that this year's grain production achieved a record "eleventh consecutive increase," with total output reaching 1214.2 billion jin, an increase of 10.32 billion jin over the previous year. Farmers' income growth achieved the "eleventh consecutive rapid increase," and the growth rate of farmers' income will exceed the growth rates of GDP and urban residents' income for 5 consecutive years, and the urban-rural income ratio is expected to narrow to within 3:1.

China's grain production is still at an extensive production stage

Although China's grain achieved the "eleventh consecutive increase" this year, industry experts believe that China's grain production methods remain relatively extensive, still at an extensive production stage that relies on chemical fertilizers, pesticides and flood irrigation to increase yields.

Li Guoxiang, a rural economics researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that this single-minded pursuit of output does indeed bring about this kind of resource consumption, and the unsustainability of competing for resources and competing in consumption is becoming more and more obvious. Agriculture has even become a source of pollution, not only affecting the quality and safety of agricultural products but also causing great harm to the environment.

Data provided to the reporter by Li Guoxiang shows that at present China's average chemical fertilizer use per mu is 21.2 kg, 4.1 times the world average. Grain production still finds it difficult to shake off the characteristics of "large farms, large amounts of water, large amounts of fertilizer." Such an extensive development mode directly leads to the decline of soil fertility. At present, the area of degraded cultivated land in China has accounted for more than 40% of the total cultivated land area. The black soil layer in Northeast China is thinning, soil in the South is acidifying, and the topsoil of the North China Plain is becoming shallower, seriously affecting the output of cultivated land. Under the increasingly severe dual constraints of cultivated land and water resources, this situation urgently needs to change.

Transform production methods and increase the growth of healthy production capacity

Industry experts point out that the next urgent task is to transform the agricultural development mode, that is, to build the development of agriculture and grain on a more sustainable foundation. The key is to allow some unhealthy production capacity to withdraw in an orderly manner, including the use of cultivated land contaminated by heavy metals and desertified cultivated land. The development of grain production through over-extraction of groundwater also needs adjustment. In the future, the withdrawal of unhealthy production capacity must be replaced by the growth of healthy production capacity.

Ye Xingqing, director of the Rural Department of the Development Research Center of the State Council, pointed out that healthy production capacity comes first from the construction of high-standard farmland. By 2020, China will build 800 million mu of high-standard farmland. If the yield increase per mu is raised by 100 kg of production capacity, that is 80 billion kg of production capacity, and this is healthy production capacity. The second aspect of healthy production capacity is science and technology, including new improved seeds, the level of mechanization, and fertilizer application techniques. The third is appropriately scaled operation.

Experts point out that land system reform is the core of rural reform. Under the current situation, the comprehensive development of the circulation of land management rights should be encouraged. Pilot programs for land mortgage rights should be carried out cautiously, and transfer rights should be controlled. As of the end of June 2014, the area of contracted cultivated land circulated in rural areas nationwide reached 380 million mu, accounting for 28.8% of the total contracted cultivated land area. Data shows that in recent years the increase in the proportion of contracted cultivated land circulated nationwide has expanded year by year. Last year the circulation proportion increased by 4.8 percentage points, and in the first half of this year it increased by another 2.8 percentage points. In the first half of this year, the circulated area also increased by 40 million mu.