What keeps agriculture from losing production when disaster strikes? Technical support and institutional safeguards
Hua County is the top grain-producing county in Henan Province and the top wheat county in China, long known as the “granary of northern Henan.” Hua County has always kept firmly in mind its political responsibility to safeguard national food security, taking stabilizing grain production and increasing income as its core task and vigorously advancing modern agricultural development. In 2014, Hua County's summer grain production overcame one unfavorable factor after another, including the relatively late temperature rise in early spring and moderately heavy pest and disease damage in the mid-to-late period, and won another bumper harvest. Total wheat output reached 861,800 tons, and the summer grain area, per-unit yield and total output all set new historic highs, successfully achieving balanced increases for 12 consecutive years. The autumn grain area increased by 15,200 mu over the previous year to 1,060,400 mu, leading corn varieties stood out, science and technology popularization was fully in place, and pest and disease occurrence was relatively light, so a “12th consecutive increase” in total grain output is expected to be achieved.
Multiple supports for avoiding production losses in the face of disaster
Improving farmland water conservancy facilities. In recent years, Hua County has solidly advanced basic farmland water conservancy construction throughout the county. The condition of water conservancy infrastructure has improved markedly, and the ability to withstand natural disasters has increased noticeably. The county has a total of 1,208 main and branch canals, 39,000 motor-pumped wells, 1.57 million mu of effectively irrigated area, and 1.15 million mu of land that yields guaranteed harvests despite drought or flood. Although rainfall since June totaled 232.6 mm, 142.2 mm less than the previous year and 115.7 mm less than the annual average, improved water conservancy facilities and scientific drought resistance effectively guaranteed normal autumn grain production.
Innovating high-yield creation models. Matching good farmland with good methods and advancing infrastructure construction and science and technology services in tandem were standout features of Hua County's grain production this year. As one of the first 50 pilot counties nationwide designated by the Ministry of Agriculture for county-wide high-yield grain creation, the county concentrated and integrated science and technology service projects on one hand and directed them uniformly to high-standard grain field demonstration plots on the other. The county's planned 6 modern agricultural meteorological science and technology demonstration parks, 18 remote agricultural condition monitoring systems and 9 regional agricultural technology extension stations were all built within high-standard grain field demonstration areas. This year, all 15 10,000-mu wheat high-yield creation plots in the county were arranged within the already-built Liugu 100,000-mu and Baimapo high-standard grain field demonstration plots. The county explored and promoted the “one integration and six unifications” creation model. High-yield cultivation techniques such as straw return, timely and appropriate sowing rates, soil testing and formula fertilization, delayed nitrogen application, and unified pest and disease control were assembled and integrated for promotion; unified supply of leading varieties, unified soil testing and formula fertilization, unified training and guidance, unified mechanical plowing and sowing, unified pest and disease control, and unified timely mechanical harvesting were carried out, achieving the organic integration of good farmland with good methods and of agricultural machinery with agronomy.
Strengthening science and technology services. Technical support was provided through measures such as science and technology subcontracting, combining technology with networks, and unified aerial control. The county has basically achieved county-wide coverage of automatic meteorological detection instruments, effectively improving the level of meteorological services for agriculture. The “100 science and technology personnel covering 1,000 villages” activity was carried out in depth, organizing 208 agricultural technology personnel to cover 1,019 administrative villages across the county and advance scientific wheat management. A cultivated land resource management information system, a soil testing and formula fertilization expert system, an online recommendation system, and a real-time wheat growth and soil moisture monitoring system were developed and applied, greatly improving the relevance and scientific nature of guidance. Plant protection helicopters were used to provide free unified aerial control for high-yield creation demonstration areas, remote air-assisted sprayers were used for unified control of mid-to-late corn pests and diseases, and multi-rotor drones were used to release Trichogramma to control corn borers. Farmers vividly described it as “pest and disease control truly brings airplanes, artillery and bombs into action together.”
Institutional innovation to advance modern agriculture
Strengthening organizational leadership and promotion. Hua County established an agricultural command center headed by the main leaders of the county Party committee to comprehensively coordinate and resolve difficulties and problems encountered in grain production, coordinate farmland construction projects across departments, and scientifically use policy funds. It established and improved the system of command leaders contacting townships, an incentive and reward system, a supervision system, and a grain production assessment mechanism, as well as a “three-level contracting” mechanism in which county leaders are responsible for townships, township leaders for villages, and village cadres for groups and households, incorporating modern agricultural work into the responsibility and target assessment system and conducting comprehensive assessment and comparison of county departments and townships.
Solidly advancing high-standard grain field construction. Through scientific planning and resource integration, Hua County broke down township boundaries, adhered to concentrated contiguous development, and increased the intensity of large-scale development. The county planned 1.55 million mu of high-standard grain fields, of which 930,000 mu has been built. It planned and built one super-large high-standard grain field area of 500,000 mu, making it the high-standard grain field demonstration area with the largest scale, highest standard and best returns in Henan Province. Supporting service organizations such as regional agricultural technology extension stations, modern agricultural meteorological science and technology demonstration parks, agricultural machinery professional cooperatives and grain planting cooperatives were also provided, forming a sound production pattern of “fields in squares, forests in networks, roads connected, canals linked, irrigable in drought, drainable in flood, excellent technology and high yields.”
Building agricultural industrialization clusters. Combining its resource advantages, Hua County built five major agricultural industrialization clusters in seed, flour products, meat products, fruits and vegetables, and forest products, with notable results. The Hua County Xin'an Flour Industry Industrialization Cluster and the Hua County Aidijia Forest Products Industrialization Cluster were designated as provincial-level agricultural industrialization clusters. The county has more than 50 agricultural industrialization enterprises, with annual flour processing capacity of more than 500,000 tons and annual feed processing capacity of more than 1.3 million tons. Brand benefits improved markedly: Huafeng Seed Industry's “Huafeng” trademark obtained the China Well-Known Trademark designation, and Daokou Braised Chicken and Baliying Melon obtained national geographical indication product protection.
Accelerating the cultivation of new agricultural operating entities. By formulating preferential policies and cultivating advanced models, Hua County vigorously supported and cultivated new agricultural operating entities, promoted standardized management of large growers, farmers' cooperatives and family farms, encouraged land transfer, and developed appropriately scaled operations, thereby advancing local specialty agriculture and effectively increasing agricultural returns. Farmers' professional cooperatives in the county grew to nearly 3,000, and rural land transfer area reached 420,900 mu.
Innovating the modern agricultural technology service system. Hua County assembled a three-tier expert service team. Relying on the national key leading enterprise Huafeng Seed Industry, it set up an academician expert workstation and a renowned expert service group; it organized county experts in agricultural technology, soil and fertilizer, plant protection and agricultural machinery into a technical expert group specifically responsible for formulating technical plans for grain production, training and other work in Hua County. It built a county agricultural comprehensive service center integrating technical consultation and science and technology training functions, set up 9 regional township agricultural technology extension stations across townships, and cultivated 1,600 science and technology demonstration households, continuously consolidating the county, township and village three-level “science and technology service positions” and connecting the “last kilometer” of agricultural technology extension.
Policy suggestions for securing the “granary of the world”
Hua County's work in advancing modern agriculture has distinctive features, many highlights and good results, but there are also some difficulties and problems that require great attention, further innovation in policies to support agriculture, benefit farmers and enrich farmers, and the promotion of sound and rapid development of modern agriculture.
Further increase fiscal support and subsidies. It is suggested to increase fiscal transfer payments to major agricultural counties so that local governments can focus on grain production with peace of mind; further increase support-agriculture and benefit-farmer subsidies, further raise the standard of improved seed subsidies, and implement free supply of improved seeds in major grain-producing areas; substantially increase subsidies to grain farmers to ensure that farmers' grain-growing income is roughly comparable to their wage income, safeguard farmers' vital interests, and better protect and mobilize farmers' enthusiasm for growing grain.
Further consolidate agricultural infrastructure construction. It is suggested to establish and improve a work coordination mechanism, integrate agriculture-related project funds, and solve the problems of numerous project names, inconsistent standards, relatively scattered funds and multiple implementing departments, so as to play a greater role in developing modern agriculture; further increase investment and advance farmland water conservancy facility construction to ensure that major agricultural counties can irrigate in drought and drain in flood, benefiting the broad masses of farmers.
Further standardize the development of new agricultural operating entities. It is suggested to strengthen standardized management of new operating entities. Clarify property rights relationships, improve coordinated and operational organizational structures, improve financial management systems, distribute returns fairly and reasonably, regularly disclose cooperative affairs, and steadily carry out credit cooperation. Conduct business training and cultivate a team of farmers' cooperative management talent who are good at operations, capable of management and dedicated in spirit. Deeply advance the demonstration cooperative construction action and create a good atmosphere of standardized cooperative operation, learning from and catching up with one another, and striving to be advanced.
Further strengthen policy support for modern agricultural development. It is suggested to increase policy preference in areas such as credit, taxation, land and electricity. Encourage and support the transfer of contracted land to farmers' cooperatives, family farms and large grain growers, develop appropriately scaled operations, and advance the intensification and scaling-up of grain production. Issue preferential policies to guide grain deep-processing enterprises to actively invest in processing projects in major grain counties. Vigorously advance the construction of high-standard grain fields, agricultural industrialization clusters and urban ecological agriculture, and achieve the leap from traditional agriculture to modern agriculture and from a major agricultural county to a strong agricultural county.