Hidden concerns behind ten consecutive bumper summer grain harvests: increasing yields through fertilizer worsens arable land quality
Hidden concerns behind ten consecutive bumper summer grain harvests
The National Bureau of Statistics website announced on July 12 that in 2013, the national total summer grain output reached 131.89 million tons, an increase of 1.96 million tons over 2012, up 1.5%; of which winter wheat output was 115.67 million tons, an increase of 1.48 million tons over the previous year, up 1.3%. In 2013, the national total summer grain output exceeded the best historical level, achieving "ten consecutive bumper harvests."
Over the past decade, thanks to the central government's attention and effective policies, "increased production" and "bumper harvests" have become agricultural keywords. However, as Chinese residents' living standards improve and dietary structures change, the supply and demand of grain and other agricultural products has remained in a state of tight balance, and food security still cannot be taken lightly at any moment.
According to statistics from the General Administration of Customs, in 2012, China's grain imports soared 156% over the previous year, reaching 13.98 million tons, accounting for about 5% of international trade volume. Among these, corn imports nearly tripled, net rice imports more than doubled, and wheat imports nearly doubled.
Of course, relative to China's annual grain consumption of 520 million tons, the proportion of imports is not high, at 2.7%, indicating that China's grain supply situation remains at a safe level; but it is precisely this enormous consumption volume that has brought long-term enormous pressure on China's agricultural production.
Dang Guoying, a researcher at the Rural Development Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told reporters that China's current arable land grain output is just barely sufficient. To maintain stable and high yields, arable land has no fallow period for rotation. If this continues, arable land fertility is worrisome.
Agricultural experts explain that crop yields depend on two factors: one is basic soil fertility, and the other is water and fertilizer management. In foreign agricultural output, the contribution rate of basic soil fertility (the soil's inherent fertility) can reach about 70%, while in China it can only reach about 50% on average. The trend of land impoverishment in China is evident.
Farmers who work the land every day have even more personal experience of this. They say, the land used to be so fertile, the soil plowed up was dark and glistening, as if it could ooze oil. Where can you find land like that now? The land gets yellower and thinner the more you plant...
When soil fertility is insufficient, fertilizer makes up for it. So we see that every spring plowing season, chemical fertilizers in agricultural supply markets everywhere are piled up like small mountains. Statistics show that China's arable land is less than 10% of the world's, yet it uses more than 1/3 of the world's chemical fertilizers. Excessive fertilization appears to maintain yields, but further worsens arable land quality and is ultimately unsustainable.
Grassroots agricultural experts told reporters that ten years ago, in some places the input-output ratio of fertilizer to grain was 1:5, meaning 1 yuan of fertilizer input could increase grain output by 5 yuan. But now this ratio has dropped to 1:1 or even lower. This shows that agricultural production no longer rises linearly with increased fertilizer use, and the path of relying solely on chemical fertilizers to increase production is growing narrower.
This is not only true of arable land resources; water resource bottlenecks are also becoming increasingly evident. In the North China Plain and other areas, due to groundwater over-extraction, many groundwater depression cones have formed. It is becoming increasingly difficult and costly for farmers to dig wells for irrigation.
Along with the process of urbanization and industrialization, and along with the sustained pressure to "increase production" and achieve "bumper harvests," the resource and environmental situation facing China's agricultural production will only become more severe; and the agricultural subsidy policies that have been implemented for many years are seeing their effect of encouraging farmers to produce weakening.
In recent years, when speaking of the excellent situation in agricultural production, the first reason cited is various agricultural subsidies. From 2004 to now, China has successively introduced and improved policies including direct subsidies to grain farmers, improved seed subsidies, agricultural machinery purchase subsidies, and comprehensive agricultural input subsidies, which greatly mobilized farmers' enthusiasm for production and played a crucial role in China's consecutive grain output increases.
However, as the prices of agricultural inputs and other production materials and the wages for farmers working away from home rise rapidly, even though agricultural subsidies increase every year, their proportion in farmers' income and production costs still shows a "double decline" trend, and their effect on mobilizing farmers' enthusiasm for growing grain and increasing grain output is not as obvious as when the policies were first introduced.
In addition, due to the current frequent phenomenon of land transfers, many farmers who actually cultivate the land cannot receive subsidies. Subsidies have become income-type welfare that farmers enjoy based on contracted land. This in turn discounts the original policy intention of stimulating production.
All the above signs indicate that although China's grain has achieved "nine consecutive increases" and summer grain has immediately achieved "ten consecutive bumper harvests," the foundation of agricultural production remains weak, and in some respects even shows more hidden concerns due to consecutive output increases. Some long-used measures to increase production are facing challenges, and the mode of agricultural production urgently needs fundamental transformation.
First, rely on scientific and technological progress and improvement of farmland infrastructure to increase output. Compared with developed countries, China's agricultural science and technology contribution rate still lags by about 20 percentage points. The situation in which agricultural development depends on the consumption of water and soil resources and on favorable weather needs to change as soon as possible; at the same time, about 70% of China's farmland is still medium- and low-yield farmland, and per-unit yields can still be increased by more than 20% through improvement.
Second, build a new type of agricultural management system to increase the vitality of agricultural development. Agricultural modernization is not only the modernization of material conditions, infrastructure, and scientific and technological levels, but also includes the modernization of agricultural production entities, organizational structures, and operating methods. Only by following the requirements for building a new type of agricultural management system and continuously strengthening and improving various support policies for agriculture can we sustainably mobilize enthusiasm for agricultural production and increase the vitality of agricultural development. (Reporter Gao Yuanzhi)
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The National Bureau of Statistics website announced on July 12 that in 2013, the national total summer grain output reached 131.89 million tons, an increase of 1.96 million tons over 2012, up 1.5%; of which winter wheat output was 115.67 million tons, an increase of 1.48 million tons over the previous year, up 1.3%.
Sown area was basically flat compared with the previous year. In 2013, the national summer grain sown area was 27.588 million hectares, basically flat compared with 2012; winter wheat sown area was 22.44 million hectares, a decrease of 45,000 hectares over the previous year, a slight decline of 0.2%. The sown area of 11 major summer grain producing provinces (regions)1 increased by 41,000 hectares, among which Jiangsu, Anhui, Shandong, Henan, Hubei, and Xinjiang, 7 provinces (regions), together increased by 179,000 hectares, mainly due to reduced cotton and oilseed planting and increased wheat planting; Hebei, Shanxi, Sichuan, Shaanxi, and Gansu, 5 provinces, decreased by 138,000 hectares.
Per-unit yield levels increased. In 2013, summer grain per-unit yield reached 4,781 kg/hectare, an increase of 71 kg/hectare over the previous year, up 1.5%; of which winter wheat per-unit yield reached 5,154 kg/hectare, an increase of 76 kg/hectare over the previous year, up 1.5%.
Most major producing areas increased output. Of the 11 major summer grain producing provinces (regions), 7 increased output and 4 decreased. Among the provinces (regions) with increased output, Hubei increased by 540,000 tons, Jiangsu by 520,000 tons, Hebei and Henan each by 490,000 tons, Xinjiang by 470,000 tons, Shandong by 400,000 tons, and Anhui by 370,000 tons, for a total increase of 3.28 million tons; affected by drought, Shaanxi decreased by 490,000 tons, Gansu by 420,000 tons, Shanxi by 290,000 tons, and Sichuan by 120,000 tons, for a total decrease of 1.32 million tons.
Among non-major producing provinces (municipalities and regions), apart from declines in Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, Yunnan, and Ningxia, other areas all saw varying degrees of output increase.
Summer miscellaneous grains increased notably. In 2013, the sown area of summer miscellaneous grains reached 5.149 million hectares, an increase of 45,000 hectares over 2012, up 0.9%; summer miscellaneous grain output reached 16.22 million tons, an increase of 470,000 tons over 2012, up 3.1%. The increase in miscellaneous grain output accounted for about one quarter of the increase in summer grain output. In particular, the Southwest region and Guangxi used winter fallow fields to expand potato sown area by 57,000 hectares, increasing output by nearly 340,000 tons.
Support policies showed obvious effects. To safeguard grain production, the central finance department promptly allocated 2013 direct grain subsidy funds, and all localities distributed them to farming households as soon as possible. For summer grain production, the central finance department allocated 1.7 billion yuan in subsidy funds for late-stage winter wheat "one spray, three preventions" (preventing pests and diseases, preventing dry hot winds, and preventing lodging), achieving full coverage of wheat "one spray, three preventions"; in addition, 800 million yuan was arranged for pest and disease control, of which 150 million yuan was specifically used for controlling pests and diseases in 1 million hectares of wheat where seedling-stage pests and diseases occurred more heavily. All of these played a very obvious role in increasing summer grain output.
Climate conditions were normal in most areas of major producing provinces. During last year's autumn and winter sowing period, soil moisture was relatively good in most winter wheat areas of China, wheat emergence was good, and seedlings were uniform and complete. After the onset of winter in northern wheat areas, temperatures declined gently, wheat cold-hardening was sufficient, and strong seedlings overwintered; after the beginning of spring, temperatures rose gently, wheat tillering was sufficient, and tiller numbers increased to varying degrees compared with previous years; since May, temperatures rose relatively quickly, which was conducive to wheat dry matter accumulation. In southern wheat areas including Hubei and Jiangsu and central-southern Anhui, the matching of light, temperature, and water was noticeably better than in normal years, which was very favorable for wheat yield increases.
Wheat pests and diseases occurred relatively lightly. The main pests and diseases affecting wheat growth were generally light this year. According to statistics from relevant departments, in 2013 the cumulative occurrence area of wheat scab decreased by 85.2% over the previous year; the cumulative occurrence area of stripe rust decreased by 51.7%; the cumulative occurrence area of aphids decreased by 22.3%; the cumulative occurrence area of wheat spider mites decreased by 9.6%; the cumulative occurrence area of wheat blossom midge decreased by 13.2%; the cumulative occurrence area of sheath blight was flat compared with the previous year.
Some areas saw reduced output due to disasters. In the Southwest, Northwest (except Xinjiang), and Shanxi, because precipitation during the summer grain growing period was generally 30% to 40% below normal, with some local areas exceeding 50% below normal, dryland wheat output fell considerably. Shanxi's per-unit yield dropped nearly 10%, Gansu nearly 9%, and Yunnan and Shaanxi nearly 8%. However, because these areas account for a relatively small proportion of the national total, overall they did not affect the national trend of increased output.
Northwestern Jiangsu, northeastern Anhui, parts of eastern and southern Henan, and southwestern Shandong were affected by April frost damage and lodging caused by heavy rainfall at the end of May, resulting in some degree of output reduction.
111 major producing provinces (regions) include Hebei, Shanxi, Jiangsu, Anhui, Shandong, Henan, Hubei, Sichuan, Shaanxi, Gansu, and Xinjiang.