Four Key Issues Facing the Development of Modern Agriculture
Recently, the author traveled to Rongcheng City and Rushan City in Weihai, Shandong, and to Muping District and Penglai City in Yantai, to investigate the development of modern agriculture. Overall, the current agricultural resource endowments and factor conditions are undergoing profound changes. As long as breakthroughs are identified and the situation is guided along its natural course and actively promoted, traditional agriculture will certainly be able to accelerate its transformation into modern agriculture.
The key to accelerating the transformation and upgrading of traditional agriculture lies in advancing agricultural mechanization, and the breakthrough lies in achieving the integration of agricultural machinery and agronomy.
The apple industry has always been a dominant industry in both Yantai and Weihai and the main source of farmers' income. Yantai's apple area is 2.65 million mu, accounting for 52.6% of the province and 7.9% of the country, contributing more than one-third of farmers' income; Weihai's apple area is 630,000 mu, driving an increase in per capita farmers' income of more than 3,000 yuan. The main problem at present is that most mature orchards in the two cities were planted in the late 1980s and early 1990s, mainly using the traditional cultivation model of dense planting on vigorous rootstocks, with tall trees, many branches, and closed canopies, poor ventilation and lighting conditions, and a low degree of mechanization, with labor use more than 10 times that of developed countries in Europe and America. Grassroots officials and farmers report that because most young and middle-aged laborers have gone out to work in recent years, hiring workers during the busy farming season is expensive and difficult, and production costs have risen sharply. According to surveys, in 2013 the average production cost per mu of traditional orchards in full fruit period was 6,757 yuan, nearly double that of 2008, of which labor costs accounted for more than half.
Facing fierce domestic and international market competition, in recent years the two cities have actively developed the modern intensive cultivation model with dwarfing rootstocks. This cultivation model features large dwarfing-rootstock nursery trees, wide-row dense planting, ridge cultivation, and trellis support, facilitating mechanized spraying and automated irrigation, achieving the integration of agricultural machinery and agronomy and the integration of water and fertilizer, and moreover providing ample light inside the canopy, better fruit color and quality, and a high rate of premium fruit. At the Huafeng Fruit Cooperative in Rongcheng City, the author saw that in the new orchards the spacing between plants is denser, while the spacing between rows is wider, with a row width of 3.5 m and an upright tree shape. The cooperative's person in charge said that with the traditional vigorous cultivation model, it takes five or six years to bear fruit; with the intensive dwarfing-rootstock cultivation model, the trees can bloom and bear fruit in the same year and enter full fruit period in three or four years, and it saves labor and effort; previously, when the orchard was closed, only manual spraying was possible, and each person could spray at most 10 mu per day; now, because the orchard rows are wide, machines can be used for spraying, and each person can spray at least 100 mu per day, increasing spraying efficiency by more than 10 times.
With the rapid development of industrialization and urbanization, labor has become a bottleneck restricting the development of modern agriculture. At the present stage, the key to advancing agricultural modernization lies in advancing agricultural mechanization, and the breakthrough lies in combining agricultural machinery with agronomy. Looking across all agricultural sectors, wherever agricultural machinery and agronomy are well combined, the degree of agricultural mechanization is high. In some cases where agricultural machinery and agronomy were not well combined in the past, mechanization levels can also be raised by improving cultivation models. For example, China has more than 100 corn varieties, planting row spacings ranging from 20-150 cm, and as many as dozens of planting models. For many years, mechanized corn harvesting could not be improved. In the past two years, by promoting unified planting technology with 60 cm equal row spacing for corn, the level of mechanized corn harvesting has continuously improved. However, in some industries, the combination of agricultural machinery and agronomy is still poor. For example, mechanization of cotton picking, rapeseed harvesting, and sugarcane harvesting has progressed slowly for many years. This is due both to lagging research and development of agricultural machinery and to factors such as the diversification of crop varieties and the low degree of production standardization.
To accelerate the pace of agricultural mechanization, we must start from both agricultural machinery and agronomy and promptly establish a working mechanism for joint research and development of agricultural machinery and agronomy. On the one hand, under the premise of following local tillage and cultivation systems, agricultural machinery should be determined by agronomy, and agricultural machinery suited to local production characteristics should be developed; on the other hand, agronomic cultivation systems should also take into account the possibility of realizing mechanized operations and the limitations of machinery, determine agronomy by agricultural machinery, improve agronomic cultivation models, and guide farmers to unify varieties, sowing dates, row spacings, row directions, and so on, so as to promote the combination of agronomy and agricultural machinery. For bulk crops such as grain, cotton, oil, and sugar, it is suggested that unified cultivation standards be studied and formulated nationwide; for some locally distinctive varieties, standards should be formulated by each locality itself. Once breakthrough progress is made in combining agricultural machinery and agronomy, the pace of transformation and upgrading of traditional agriculture will be greatly accelerated.
Improving the quality and safety level of agricultural products fundamentally depends on strengthening local government responsibility, and the top priority is to establish a traceability system for agricultural product quality
Yantai and Weihai are located in the eastern coastal region, with a high level of agricultural export orientation, and most agricultural products are exported to Japan and South Korea. Both cities place agricultural product quality and safety work in a prominent position, include it in the scope of the annual target responsibility system assessment for county and township governments, and grasp both production and supervision, building a whole-process supervision system from production to processing to sales.
At Yantai Dacheng Food Co., Ltd., which the author inspected on site, the company adopts a model of self-built bases and “company + farmers” and has developed more than 100,000 mu of peanut bases, driving more than 20,000 peanut-growing households. The company's person in charge told the author that the products are mainly sold to Japan and South Korea, and both Japan and South Korea are very strict in quality inspection of imported products. Once there is a product quality problem, not only does the enterprise have to pay compensation, but farmers also suffer losses. For this reason, the company helped producers formulate strict pesticide residue control plans, and in recent years there has not been a single case of returns due to agricultural product quality problems. At the Shuntai Fruit and Vegetable Professional Cooperative in Rushan City, the author saw that the blueberries planted by the cooperative are strictly managed according to organic production technical operating procedures, the production process is recorded, and all products carry traceability QR codes. By scanning the code via WeChat, one can easily obtain information such as place of origin, production date, pesticide and fertilizer use, realizing full-process traceability.
Ensuring the quality and safety of agricultural products is not an unsolvable problem. The key to solving this problem is to strengthen the responsibility of local governments. As the saying goes, “Old big difficult, old big difficult, once the top leader takes it in hand, it is no longer difficult.” Gao Shuliang, Party Secretary of Rushan City, and Sui Jianbo, Mayor of Rushan City, told the author that Rushan City is a national demonstration zone for the quality and safety of export agricultural products. The municipal party committee and municipal government treat agricultural product quality and safety as a top-priority project, invest more than 4 million yuan each year, and have established a whole-process supervision system from production to sales. The practice of the two cities shows that as long as local party and government leaders, especially the main leaders of counties and cities, truly attach importance to it, implement responsibilities downward, and make local governments and producers parties with linked interests and joint responsibilities in agricultural product quality and safety, sharing honor and loss together, the quality and safety level of agricultural products can certainly be improved.
To speak truthfully, the production of agricultural products involves many links and a long chain. From field to table, a problem in any link can lead to quality and safety problems in agricultural products. From the government's perspective, it has neither the manpower, nor the financial resources, nor the energy to strengthen supervision of every link. Instead, it should highlight key links, ensure key nodes, and guide enterprises to establish and improve traceability systems for agricultural product quality and safety so as to achieve traceable quality.
To improve the comparative benefits of agriculture, the way out lies in doing a good job in the major undertaking of agricultural product processing, and the core is to coordinate deep processing and primary processing and take into account the interests of both large enterprises and small farmers
The agricultural product processing industry in Yantai and Weihai developed early and is at a relatively high level, and has become an important way to drive agricultural efficiency and farmers' income growth. At present, Yantai has built seven major leading enterprise groups in edible oil, vermicelli, fruit, aquatic products, vegetables, livestock product processing, and wine brewing. The city has 13 national-level leading enterprises, driving 3 million farmer households inside and outside the city and absorbing 740,000 rural laborers into transferred employment. Rushan City has built a peanut industry chain led by Hualong Food, a ginger industry chain led by Jili Food, and an oyster industry chain led by Haodangjia Food, and the agricultural product processing industry is showing vigorous development. Yantai Jisiboer Grape Winemaking Co., Ltd., using the resource advantages of local apples, grapes, large cherries, pears, and so on, has developed deep-processed products such as wine, fruit vinegar beverages, collagen drinks, and fruit distilled spirits.
During the investigation, the author found that localities are more interested in and enthusiastic about developing deep processing of agricultural products and large agricultural product processing enterprises, and support is often greater; however, primary processing of agricultural products and small and medium-sized agricultural product processing enterprises have not yet received sufficient attention, and support is relatively smaller. In fact, deep processing of agricultural products and primary processing of agricultural products each have their own advantages. Deep processing has a long industrial chain, high added value, and strong driving force, while primary processing is conducive to the storage and preservation of agricultural products and to achieving high quality at a high price. Deep processing and primary processing are two ends of one chain, with no distinction of superior or inferior, only different divisions of labor. To develop modern agriculture, there is a need both for a large number of large enterprises engaged in deep processing and for numerous small and medium-sized enterprises, even micro and small enterprises, engaged in primary processing. Neither can be neglected. Generally speaking, deep-processing enterprises mostly have strong industrial and commercial capital as backing and support and possess good self-sustaining capacity. Government departments mainly create a good development environment in terms of land use and taxation and support them in establishing win-win interest linkage mechanisms with farmers. Primary processing, especially primary processing at the field, is often operated by specialized large households, farmer cooperatives, and other new types of business entities. Their strength is generally relatively weak, and establishing cold chains, storage, packaging, and so on requires large amounts of funds. The government should provide more support in terms of funds and credit so that farmers can directly obtain more tangible benefits in the primary processing link.
Developing leisure tourism agriculture can both enrich farmers and beautify rural areas. It is an important vehicle for coordinating urban and rural development, and the focus should be on integrating rural resources well and turning the primary industry into the tertiary industry
Weihai and Yantai fully use the rich natural resources of the local mountains and sea embracing each other, vigorously promote the development of leisure agriculture, and have built a number of leisure agriculture bases with a certain scale and distinctive features. Majiagou Village, Liujiagou Town, Penglai City, using natural, ecological, and historical cultural resources, relying on national project funds, and actively attracting social investment, implemented the transformation of mountains, rivers, forests, fields, and roads, comprehensive agricultural development, ecological agriculture construction, high-efficiency water conservation, and the transformation of dwarfing-rootstock apple orchards, promoting the organic combination of agricultural production functions and leisure functions and creating a distinctive rural eco-tourism industry chain. It has transformed from a poor small mountain village into one of China's 10 most charming leisure villages in 2013. Xixiakou Village in Rongcheng City is a nationally famous well-off village. In the past two years, it has combined tourism with modern aquaculture and vigorously developed leisure fishing and other fishing-family entertainment, further enriching tourism resources and achieving good results.
At present, the two cities have a total of 742 leisure agriculture operating entities, more than 40,000 employees, and an annual visitor reception volume of more than 4.7 million person-times. Leisure agriculture takes many forms. Some rely on agricultural industry advantages and integrate picking, dining, fishing, and sightseeing; some attract tourists with local unique agricultural natural resources; and some attract tourists for leisure picking in seasons when apple, cherry, pear, and other fruit trees bloom and their products come onto the market. This approach of planning and laying out leisure tourism agriculture together with new rural construction not only optimizes the rural industrial structure and increases farmers' income, but also improves the rural ecological environment and builds beautiful villages.
During the investigation, the author also found that in order to develop leisure agriculture, some localities actively introduce industrial and commercial capital and enclose and occupy large amounts of cultivated land. To develop leisure agriculture and advance new rural construction, farmers should be the main body, and “farmhouse entertainment” should be developed with farmer households and village groups as units, rather than enterprises going to the countryside and into villages to enclose land. Enterprises should drive farmers, not replace them. With the accelerated advancement of new urbanization, this phenomenon especially deserves attention and concern.