Normalized grain production growth: innovating agricultural development methods is key

In recent years, Yongqiao District of Suzhou City, Anhui Province, as an important national grain production base, has strengthened its sense of overall interests, consciously shouldered the responsibility of safeguarding national food security, and, driven by the construction of the National Modern Agriculture Demonstration Zone and the National Comprehensive Rural Reform Pilot Zone, innovated modern agricultural production methods, operating entities and safeguard mechanisms, promoting grain production to achieve an "eleventh consecutive increase." In 2013, the district's total grain crop sown area was 3.698 million mu, with total output reaching 1.3212 million tons; the grain commodity volume was 1.123 million tons, accounting for 85% of total output, and it won the title of national advanced unit in grain production for the 7th consecutive time.

Innovating production methods to achieve large-scale planting

Land intensification. Centering on the construction of the modern agriculture "two zones," under the premise of "lawful, voluntary and compensated," combined incentive measures were adopted, land transfer was vigorously promoted, land was guided to concentrate toward new-type operating entities such as family farms, farmers' cooperatives and agricultural enterprises, and the process of land intensification was appropriately accelerated. As of the end of July 2014, the district had transferred 633,000 mu of land. At the same time, through methods such as substitute cultivation, substitute planting and substitute management, "nanny-style" services were provided to farmers, with land trusteeship area reaching 120,000 mu.

Standardized planting. After experimental demonstration, the leading grain varieties were determined; fine varieties such as "Liangxing 66," "Yannong 5158" and "Jimai 22" were selected and promoted throughout the district, with fine seed coverage rate reaching over 99%, achieving optimization of crop varieties. Large grain-growing households, family farms and specialized cooperatives were organized, in accordance with the requirements of the "Yongqiao District Wheat High-Yield Cultivation Regulations," to vigorously implement the "ten, hundred, thousand" wheat high-yield creation activity. In this year's summer harvest, the average unit yield of 1.85 million mu of wheat in the district reached 520 kg, among which the average unit yield of 1 million mu of high-standard farmland exceeded 550 kg, the unit yield of 5 ten-thousand-mu high-yield demonstration plots of the Ministry of Agriculture reached 650 kg, and the highest per-mu yield reached 814.6 kg, setting a new record for the highest unit yield in Anhui Province.

Production mechanization. The integration of agricultural machinery and agronomy was deepened, the construction of agricultural machinery specialized cooperatives was strengthened, agricultural machinery financial service mechanisms were explored, the policy of subsidies for agricultural machinery purchases was implemented, agricultural machinery promotion demonstration bases were built, and the process of agricultural mechanization was accelerated. In 2013, the district's total agricultural machinery power reached 2.0914 million kilowatts, an increase of 31,800 kilowatts; the comprehensive mechanization level of cultivation, planting and harvesting of major crops reached 87.92%, an increase of 3.56 percentage points year-on-year, laying a solid foundation for the large-scale development of agricultural production. It was successively rated as a national "Safe Agricultural Machinery" demonstration zone and a national agricultural machinery safety supervision "Serving the People, Striving for Excellence" demonstration window.

Innovating operating entities to achieve agricultural industrialization

Cultivating new-type agricultural operating entities. Preferential policy support was given in aspects such as finance, projects, finance, training and technology, and the three major operating entities of agricultural enterprises, farmers' specialized cooperatives and family farms were vigorously cultivated, developing 244 leading agricultural enterprises, 989 farmers' specialized cooperatives and 389 family farms. To meet the needs of agricultural industrialization development, in accordance with the principle of "agricultural enterprises as the leader, family farms as the foundation and farmers' specialized cooperatives as the link," a framework was built, pilot trials were carried out first, and new-type agricultural industry consortiums were established. At present, the district has formed 18 agricultural industry consortiums.

Building a new-type agricultural operating system. New-type agricultural operating entities, through signing production service contracts and agreements, established the responsibilities, rights and interests of all parties. The operating model of new-type agricultural industry consortiums was actively explored, initially forming internal interest linkage mechanisms such as transaction linkage, asset linkage, capital linkage, technology linkage and brand linkage. In 2013, the Huaihe Grain Industry Consortium of Yongqiao District successively guaranteed loans of 8 million yuan for 4 family farms, resolving the "financing difficulty" of family farms.

Accelerating the process of agricultural industrialization. Agricultural enterprises uniformly formulated production standards, family farms implemented production and operation, and farmers' specialized cooperatives provided professional technical services. During the production process, production was carried out according to enterprise standards, soil testing and formula fertilization were uniformly carried out, agricultural product testing was uniformly conducted, and crop straw was uniformly treated, which both improved the quality of agricultural products and protected the ecological environment. A group of large and medium-sized enterprises, such as Anhui Ante Food Co., Ltd. and Anhui Wangwang Flour Group Co., Ltd., need up to 1 billion kg of commodity grain each year, carrying out local processing, transformation and value appreciation. The grain trading market in Dadian Town trades 1 million kg of grain every day, transports 300 million kg of grain outward annually, and sells far to the three northeastern provinces and coastal areas.

Innovating safeguard mechanisms to achieve normalized production increases

Implementing the strictest farmland protection system. In land transfer, the "Land Administration Law" was strictly implemented, and basic farmland being kept away from grain and converted to non-agricultural uses was resolutely eliminated. The strictest farmland protection system was implemented, the "five prohibitions" of the land and resources management system were strictly implemented, land exchange and reclamation projects were actively carried out, comprehensive treatment of land in coal mining subsidence areas was vigorously implemented, and pilot projects of "linking people and land" were explored and promoted, effectively alleviating the contradiction of construction land encroaching on rural farmland. In 2013, 180 million yuan was invested, 200,000 mu of land was comprehensively improved, and 3,760 mu of newly added farmland was exchanged.

Implementing benefit-to-farmers safeguard policies. With an eye to mobilizing farmers' enthusiasm for growing grain, various policies strengthening and benefiting agriculture, such as direct grain subsidies, were strictly implemented; in 2013, more than 200 million yuan in various benefit-to-farmers subsidy funds was implemented in total. The reward and support measures for accelerating modern agriculture construction were revised and improved, subsidy policies for key technologies for large-scale concentrated disaster prevention and reduction and stable and increased production were implemented, and overlapping subsidies were applied to more than 1,200 large grain-growing households, agricultural cooperative organizations, family farms, enterprise consortiums and 123 professional plant protection service teams in the district. Various agriculture-related funds totaling 290 million yuan were bundled together to vigorously carry out standardized farmland construction. In 2014, standardized farmland wheat high-yield creation increased by 200,000 mu compared with last year, average unit yield increased by about 120 kg, and ten-thousand-mu high-yield demonstration plots increased by 2 compared with last year, with average unit yield increasing by more than 150 kg.

Innovating financial service products. Pilot work such as unsecured loans, greenhouse mortgage loans and joint-household guarantee loans was actively carried out, with cumulative guaranteed loans of 210 million yuan for agricultural industry consortiums. In cooperation with the Suzhou Branch of Bank of China, the "Suzhou Agricultural Loan Express" business was carried out, granting a credit line of 200 million yuan to leading agricultural enterprises. In cooperation with CITIC Trust Co., Ltd., the 1301st phase of a collective trust plan for rural land contractual management rights was launched, giving priority to the interests of the masses and effectively unifying the interests of multiple parties such as agricultural enterprises, trust companies and the government, attracting high attention from domestic and foreign media.

Establishing the most direct agricultural technology promotion mechanism. The strategy of modern agricultural science and technology-driven development was implemented, a high-yield creation expert guidance system was established, and an agricultural technology promotion mechanism was implemented in which agricultural technicians go directly to households, fine seeds and fine methods go directly to fields, and key technical points go directly to people. 1.7 million yuan was invested in the construction of an Internet of Things project. In high-yield demonstration operation areas, integrated high-yield creation technologies such as high-yield grain cultivation, pest and disease control, soil testing and formula fertilization, water-saving irrigation and disaster prevention and reduction conservation tillage were vigorously promoted. In the 2014 summer harvest, the contribution rate of science and technology to high wheat yield reached 65%.

Implementing benefit-to-the-people grain purchase and storage actions. The amount of purchase funds was scientifically calculated based on grain output, commodity volume and expected purchase volume, systems such as warehouse-resident supervision, inspection and supervision were strictly implemented, and a supervision responsibility system and accountability system were implemented. In this year's summer harvest, 220 million kg of wheat was newly purchased and stored, truly achieving the "five requirements and five prohibitions": open purchase must be carried out, receiving whenever grain arrives, and farmers must not be made to suffer; pricing must be based on quality, with high quality at high price, and farmers must not be harmed; grading must be fair and measurement must be accurate, and farmers must not be shortchanged; settlement must be in cash, with no IOUs, and farmers must not be schemed against; quality service must be provided, difficulties must be resolved, and farmers must not be treated coldly.