Farming is a subject with no end to learning

In the autumn of 2014, the grain harvest season. In Dongfeng Village, Yilong Town, Yi'an County, the old farmer Li Dajun and his son Li Sheng, when harvesting corn of the same area, the same variety and the same cultivation method, got different yields. One yielded less than 600 kg per mu, while the other yielded more than 800 kg per mu. Behind the huge difference in yield there was nothing else but this: Old Li thought the corn was planted too densely, so he thinned the corn seedlings kept at 5,000 plants per mu by removing every other one, while his son Li Sheng followed the standard practice and kept one plant for every one planted. This is a typical result of one not understanding science and the other believing in science.

The purpose of leaping from traditional agriculture to modern agriculture is to raise land output and increase economic returns. In this process, gradually abandoning traditional cultivation methods, constantly exploring and applying new planting techniques, and combining agricultural machinery with agronomy for scientific, matched assembly is the only way to set out on the journey of modern agriculture. However, among today's farmers, there are still some older farmers who came through the "mass herd" period of the production team, have a low level of education, and are accustomed to continuing with old methods of farming. They always think they know how to farm and are the "old hands" of the farmstead, so in the process of modern agricultural development they often accept new things slowly; some find new planting techniques "hard to stomach," some doubt them, and some gossip about them, which slows the pace of spreading new technology. The father and son at the beginning of this article, although only differing in the number of seedlings kept, reveal that the "old hands" have deep-rooted latent attitudes toward traditional agriculture.

Although older farmers cling to the old ways, whenever they hear news of corn yielding over a ton per mu, rice yielding over a ton per mu, and other crops reaching high yields, they are also stirred. Some can quickly adjust their mindset and keep up in time, taking big strides, while others hold a wait-and-see attitude of waiting a while and taking a look, marking time. Looking across the motherland's Northeast region and areas such as Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang, basically one crop is grown a year; if it is grown well, there is a high-yield harvest, and if it is not grown well, there is low yield and poor harvest, and the year is over.

Taking the path of modern agricultural development requires all farmers who work the land to have a relatively high overall quality to manage the entire process of crop production; if any link goes wrong, the land will put "blinders" on you. At present, whether old farmers or new farmers, all should become professional farmers and become farming experts, constantly taking the high-yield models explored by professional experts and farming farmers and using them for themselves, thoroughly abandoning outdated cultivation models that have reached their peak, and constantly advancing toward the goals of low input and high output, and high input and high output.

Agricultural experts are a strong backing for ensuring high agricultural yields and harvests. They should continuously, through distance education platforms or face-to-face exchanges with farmers, point the way and do their utmost to contribute to increasing production and income for farmers who work the land and to safeguarding national food security.