The Ministry of Agriculture Vigorously Promotes the Protection and Improvement of Cultivated Land Quality
On October 29, this reporter learned from the National Cultivated Land Quality Development On-Site Meeting convened by the Ministry of Agriculture in Yangzhou, Jiangsu, that next year the Ministry of Agriculture will vigorously promote the protection and improvement of cultivated land quality, with soil fertility building, soil improvement, nutrient balance, and quality restoration as the main content, and with high-standard farmland project completed areas, cultivated land occupied-compensated balance project areas, and areas with prominent cultivated land quality problems as the implementation priorities, focusing on improving the intrinsic quality of cultivated land to lay a solid long-term foundation for grain and agricultural production.
The meeting pointed out that the foundation of food security lies in cultivated land, and the key lies in cultivated land quality. For many years, agricultural departments at all levels, while earnestly doing a good job in farmland infrastructure construction, have actively promoted cultivated land quality development, providing strong support for promoting consecutive years of grain production increases and the sustained and stable development of the planting industry, but a long-term mechanism for cultivated land quality protection has not yet been established. At present, degraded cultivated land accounts 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 plow layer in the North China Plain is becoming shallower. In particular, problems such as the relatively low quality grade of some supplementary cultivated land seriously affect cultivated land output, while cultivated land pollution and long-term high-intensity, overloaded use also pose threats to the quality and safety of agricultural products and the sustainable development of agriculture.
The meeting emphasized that for cultivated land quality development work at present and for a period to come, in terms of development thinking, it is necessary to strengthen the concepts of “placing equal emphasis on quantity and quality” of cultivated land resources and the “quality red line” of cultivated land protection, improve the management work mechanism and construction compensation mechanism, gradually achieve normalized, law-based, and standardized cultivated land quality management, explore and promote the establishment of compensation policies for cultivated land development and protection, and provide funding guarantees for the development of cultivated land quality.
In terms of development goals, centering on achieving the quantitative security of agricultural products, the quality and safety of agricultural products, and agricultural ecological security, it is necessary to raise the level of field facilities and the basic soil fertility of cultivated land, improve the cultivated land quality environment, and ensure that by 2020, 800 million mu of high-standard farmland will be built that is concentrated and contiguous and yields stable harvests despite drought or excessive rain; basic soil fertility of cultivated land will increase by 0.5 grades, and soil organic matter content will increase by 0.5 percentage points; the utilization rate of organic fertilizer resources will increase by 20 percentage points, straw return to the field will reach 80%, zero growth in pesticide and chemical fertilizer use will be achieved, and problems such as cultivated land acidification, salinization, and pollution will be effectively controlled.
In terms of development paths, it is necessary to coordinate the present and the long term, production and ecology, engineering and technology, and agricultural machinery and agronomy, highlight the four key points of “improvement, cultivation, protection, and control.” “Improvement” means improving soil, focusing on improving obstacle soils such as acidified and salinized soils and improving cultivation methods; “cultivation” means building soil fertility, focusing on increasing soil organic matter content and the basic soil fertility of cultivated land; “protection” means protecting water and fertilizer, focusing on promoting soil testing and formulated fertilization and integrated water and fertilizer management, advancing deep plowing and deep loosening, and promoting contour planting; “control” means pollution control and restoration, focusing on controlling the application of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, blocking and controlling heavy metal and organic pollution, and controlling agricultural film residue.
The meeting required that the task of cultivated land quality development is long-term and arduous, and agricultural departments at all levels should promote the formulation of relevant plans for cultivated land quality development, actively coordinate and strive for funding input, fully do a good job in the designation of permanent basic farmland and the quality acceptance of supplementary cultivated land, effectively strengthen the development of the cultivated land quality monitoring system, accelerate the legislative process for cultivated land quality protection, and make greater contributions to promoting stable increases in grain production, sustained increases in farmers' incomes, and the sustained and healthy development of the agricultural and rural economy.