Black soil is brimming with new vitality in agricultural transformation
For the "number one granary under heaven," how can agriculture achieve further increases in output, efficiency and income on the existing foundation? Yushu City has given its answer——accelerate the pace of agricultural transformation and upgrading, and go all out to advance modern agriculture. Today, whether in agricultural production methods or business methods, quiet changes are taking place. "The corn is growing especially fast now, different every single day!" At present, crops are in their golden growth period, and Li Shen, a major grain grower in Zhifu Village, Wukeshu Town, Yushu City, visits his fields every day to check on the corn's growth.
Having won the title of National Grain Production Model County (City) for 10 consecutive years, with annual grain output exceeding 3 billion kg……for Yushu, the "number one granary under heaven," how can agriculture achieve further increases in output, efficiency and income on the existing foundation? In 2013, after being designated a national pilot demonstration zone for agricultural reform and development, Yushu City accelerated the pace of agricultural transformation and upgrading and went all out to advance modern agriculture. Today, in Yushu, whether in agricultural production methods or business methods, quiet changes are taking place, and the black soil is brimming with new vitality.
From "relying on heaven for food" to "guaranteed harvest despite drought or flood"
"In the past, farming depended on the heavens' mood, but things are different now. We have built high-standard farmland, irrigated in drought and drained in flood!" Talking about farming in recent years, Li Shen said his greatest feeling is that farming has become increasingly worry-free. In recent years, Yushu City has continuously increased investment in facility agriculture, so that farmers no longer "rely on heaven for food." At present, Yushu City's agricultural machinery inventory exceeds 40,000 units (sets), the area under full-process agricultural mechanization reaches 2.5 million mu, and the comprehensive mechanization level reaches 85%. The hail prevention and rain enhancement network now covers most of the city's farmland, with 483 large water-saving sprinkler irrigation units (sets) and 670 mobile sprinkler irrigation units (sets) installed. The city's high-standard farmland reaches 1.8 million mu, accounting for 31% of the cultivated land area.
⟦NL> The province's first industrialized rice seedling cultivation base, the province's first county-level academy of agricultural sciences……"Guaranteed harvest despite drought or flood" cannot be achieved without the support of science and technology, and Yushu City has created many "firsts" in our province's agriculture. In order to make science and technology better serve agriculture, Yushu City integrated township agricultural stations and agricultural machinery stations, established 26,000 mu of high-yield research fields, and initially achieved the integration of agricultural machinery and agronomy; implemented 144,000 mu of high-light-efficiency technology demonstrations and 700,000 mu of conservation tillage; established 50 "ten-thousand-mu high-yield demonstration plots," covering an area of 500,000 mu; achieved full coverage of rodent eradication in farmland and trichogramma use against borers; soil testing and formulated fertilization reached 3 million mu, accounting for 51% of the total cultivated land area; and set up unified pest and disease prevention and control teams, achieving aerial control operations on 200,000 mu of cultivated land.
From "one household at a time" to "scale operations"
"We work with 6 cooperatives, operating 7,500 mu of land." In the past, Yushu's agriculture was based on production and operation methods centered on individual households, which not only restricted mechanization development, modern technology promotion, socialization of agricultural services and industrialization of agricultural operations, but also could not adapt to increasingly fierce market competition. In recent years, Yushu City has focused on supporting the development of new types of operating entities and strengthening new types of operating service organizations. The "enterprise + cooperative + farmer" model of Jilin Grain and Oil Storage and Transportation Company has been welcomed by many farmers. According to reports, the enterprise uses its advantages in capital, technology and management to help cooperatives solve bottleneck problems encountered in large-scale production; cooperatives use the production materials, agricultural technology and management concepts provided by the enterprise to carry out large-scale, standardized operations; and the original farmers are freed from the land, with some going to work at cooperatives and others going out to work, achieving a win-win-win for enterprises, cooperatives and farmers.
In addition, Yushu City has also promoted various operating models such as land trusteeship and family farms. At present, various farmers' professional cooperatives have grown to 2,826, quasi-family farms have grown to 2,172, and the land transfer area has reached 2.317 million mu, accounting for 39% of the total cultivated land area.
From "blind production" to "contract farming"
"With orders in hand, we no longer have to worry about selling rice!" Yushu City gives play to the driving role of leading enterprises, builds bases around leading agricultural product processing enterprises, and makes the black soil the enterprises' first workshop. Yushu City Lanheba Rice Industry Co., Ltd. established a high-quality rice production base of 14,200 mu, driving 2,028 farmer households. Today, many farmers in Sandaо Village, Yujia Town, Yushu City have signed orders with the company and embarked on the path of "contract farming."
By promoting production and sales models such as enterprise orders, online orders, foreign trade orders, farmer-supermarket docking and farmer-school docking, Yushu City continuously optimizes the contract farming model and has achieved an agricultural order area of 1.2 million mu. In 2013, Yushu City connected farmers and enterprises and launched a new "grain bank" model. According to reports, farmers deliver grain to the enterprise according to the agreement, and on the same day they can settle 10% of the grain sale payment according to the market price. Within the following 6 months, farmers can go to the enterprise at any time to settle according to that day's market price. If that day's market price is lower than the market price on the day the farmer delivered the grain, the enterprise will also give the farmer a subsidy of 10 yuan/ton. "This method eases the raw material supply and capital pressure of grain processing and storage enterprises, while also solving problems such as difficulties farmers face in grain storage and being unable to get a good price, and it avoids grain loss." A relevant person in charge of the Yushu City Agriculture Bureau introduced that in 2013 the "grain bank" stored and purchased 100,000 tons of grain, cashing out nearly 200 million yuan, opening a "green channel" for farmers to sell grain.