How does agricultural science and technology safeguard food security?
Scientific and technological brilliance during the Twelfth Five-Year Plan
During the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan" period, science and technology made important contributions to the transformation of the agricultural development mode.
The contribution rate of agricultural science and technology progress maintained a growth rate of nearly 1 percentage point per year, and improved varieties of major crops basically achieved full coverage. The national average yield per unit area of grain crops increased from 331.7 kg per mu in 2010 to 365.5 kg in 2015; the coverage rate of improved dairy cow varieties rose to about 60%, the proportion of improved and domestically produced livestock and poultry varieties increased year by year, and the contribution rate of improved varieties to agricultural yield increases reached more than 43%; the comprehensive mechanization level of cultivation, planting and harvesting of major crops nationwide rose from 52.3% in 2010 to 63% in 2015.
Since the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan", China's agricultural science and technology has entered a new stage of "running in parallel with, keeping pace with and leading" the field, with land output rate, resource utilization rate and labor productivity all significantly improved, providing strong scientific and technological support for the "twelve consecutive increases" in grain production and the safeguarding of national food security. Mass entrepreneurship and innovation flourished, the integrated development of the primary, secondary and tertiary industries advanced in depth, and technological progress in fields such as biological breeding, agricultural machinery and equipment, smart agriculture and ecological environmental protection made important contributions to accelerating the transformation of the agricultural development mode.
A set of data can corroborate such changes: China's contribution rate of agricultural science and technology progress rose from 52% in 2010 to more than 56% in 2015, and the contribution rate of forestry science and technology progress rose from 43% to 48%, basically maintaining a growth rate of nearly 1 percentage point per year. Improved varieties of major crops basically achieved full coverage, and the national average yield per unit area of grain crops increased from 331.7 kg per mu in 2010 to 365.5 kg in 2015; the coverage rate of improved dairy cow varieties rose to about 60%, the proportion of improved and domestically produced livestock and poultry varieties increased year by year, and the contribution rate of improved varieties to agricultural yield increases reached more than 43%; the comprehensive mechanization level of cultivation, planting and harvesting of major crops nationwide rose from 52.3% in 2010 to 63% in 2015.
Independent innovation capacity in agricultural science and technology grew increasingly stronger
In 2014, the two-line hybrid variety "Y Liangyou 900" reached a yield of 1026.70 kg per mu in a hundred-mu demonstration field, achieving for the first time the fourth-phase target of super hybrid rice of over 1,000 kg per mu and setting another world record for the highest yield per unit area of hybrid rice over a relatively large area.
For many years, Chinese scientists represented by Yuan Longping have made world-renowned achievements in the utilization of heterosis in major crops such as rice, corn and rapeseed. They broke through the technical bottleneck of the narrow genetic basis of traditional heterosis utilization in crops, and created a number of strong-heterosis hybrids of rice, cotton, corn, rapeseed, soybean and wheat with independent intellectual property rights and breakthrough characteristics, with yield increases of up to 30% and excellent resistance, making China's overall technical level in strong-heterosis hybrid breeding of crops internationally leading.
The achievements in breeding are only a microcosm of the strengthening of China's independent innovation capacity in agricultural science and technology.
Since the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan", through the organization and implementation of key projects under science and technology programs such as "973", "863" and the Science and Technology Support Program, China's major scientific and technological innovation indicators have ranked among the world's forefront, the number of international scientific papers has remained firmly in second place for many consecutive years, the number of citations in the agricultural discipline rose from eighth to second place, a total of 175 agricultural science and technology achievements won national awards, and a number of major achievements reaching the world's advanced level were obtained.
Rice functional genomics continued to maintain an all-round internationally leading academic position; major progress was made in the field of animal and plant bioreactors; large-scale ultra-high-pressure food processing technology broke the monopoly of foreign technology and equipment; a major breakthrough was made in comprehensive prevention and control technology for the major forest pest and disease pine wilt nematode; 200-horsepower-class tractor technology obtained independent intellectual property rights and entered the industrialization stage, and for the first time the capacity for independent research and development of core technology for 400-horsepower heavy tractors was established.
The Grain High-Yield Science and Technology Project achieved remarkable results
In 2015, Anhui Province proposed measures such as selecting stress-resistant and heat-tolerant varieties, optimizing the planting sequence to avoid high-temperature stress during the flowering and heading stage, adopting water and fertilizer regulation and foliar fertilizer spraying when high-temperature warnings occurred or sudden high-temperature damage struck, and "converting indica rice to japonica rice" and other proactive defense measures, which played a relatively good role in resisting high-temperature heat damage to rice; Hebei Province, in response to severe drought in summer corn production, promoted and applied technologies such as sequential irrigation at key stages, synchronized water and fertilizer application at the large trumpet stage, and supplementary fertilization at the flowering and grain-filling stage, ensuring continuous yield increases in summer corn in the project areas, with yields at multiple sites exceeding 850 kg per mu and reaching as high as 874.37 kg... All of this benefited from the Grain High-Yield Science and Technology Project.
During the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan" period, through implementing the Grain High-Yield Science and Technology Project, China carried out integrated innovation and demonstration application of grain high-yield technologies in 13 major grain-producing provinces across the three major plains of Northeast China, North China and the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, increasing grain output by more than 56 million tons and increasing benefits by more than 100 billion yuan over five years. In the 13 provinces of the project, a total of 125 sets of high-yield technology systems for the three major crops (wheat, corn and rice) with regional characteristics were assembled, and after large-scale application they significantly improved the comprehensive production capacity of the three major crops, increased the utilization rates of chemical fertilizers and irrigation water by more than 10%, reduced pesticide use by about 25%, and saved costs and increased efficiency by about 110 yuan per mu.
Demonstration and transformation of technological achievements continued to accelerate
During the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan" period, China's agricultural science and technology adhered to the basic requirements of placing equal emphasis on increasing output and efficiency, matching improved varieties with improved methods and improved fields, combining agricultural machinery with agronomy, and coordinating production with ecology, accelerated the integrated demonstration and transformative application of advanced and applicable technological achievements, and took the path of agricultural modernization featuring high output, safe products, resource conservation and environmental friendliness.
For example, the Bohai Granary Science and Technology Demonstration Project, from its launch in 2013 to 2015, carried out demonstration zone construction and integrated technology demonstration in more than 70 counties, cities and districts across Hebei, Shandong, Tianjin and Liaoning, establishing a total of 42 core zones with an area of 141,000 mu, 103 demonstration zones with an area of 1.462 million mu, and a radiating area of 15.966 million mu, with a total grain increase of 3.36 billion jin and an efficiency increase of 2.463 billion yuan; the Ministry of Science and Technology and others also deployed research and demonstration of water-saving agricultural technology and equipment in arid and semi-arid areas, forming a comprehensive water-saving technology system for arid and semi-arid areas that reduced soil and water loss on dry sloping land by 70%; implemented a key special project on agricultural equipment, built a fully mechanized production technology system for major crops, and carried out demonstrations of intelligent agricultural production and information service technology; launched the National Food Safety Innovation Project, built a national food safety science and technology model base, and focused on building an information-based, precise and traceable food safety system covering the entire process from field to table and from food to health across the whole industrial chain; and carried out pilot construction of national rural informatization demonstration provinces in 13 provinces and municipalities including Shandong, Hunan and Anhui, realizing "platform moved up, services extended down, one network governing all" for agricultural and rural information services.