Vegetable industry urgently needs to break through the two major bottlenecks of production costs and quality safety
Editor's note
As temperatures rise, the peak season for vegetable production has arrived again, and the new requirements for adjusting the planting structure have also turned more farmers' attention from growing grain to growing vegetables. Vegetable production is related both to farmers' "money bags" and to urban residents' "vegetable baskets." How can quality and efficiency be improved, shortcomings be addressed, and supply be balanced? Research institutes have "high-precision, advanced and cutting-edge" solutions, and "local experts" also have good methods. This issue introduces them one by one for you.
A few days ago, more than 700 vegetable industry practitioners from all over the country gathered at the Shungeng International Convention and Exhibition Center in Jinan, Shandong Province, to discuss how to break through the bottlenecks constraining industry development and explore the future direction of the vegetable industry. Inside and outside the venue, new equipment, new technologies, and new models related to vegetable production became the focus of attention from all sides.
This is the venue of the 4th China Vegetable Industry Conference. From May 19 to 20, the 2016 China Vegetable Industry Conference, co-hosted by the China Vegetable Association and the Shandong Provincial Department of Agriculture, was held here. At the meeting, Zhang Zhongqiu, Chief Veterinary Officer of the Ministry of Agriculture, introduced that in recent years, China's vegetable production has continued to develop, with the planting area stable at more than 300 million mu and annual output at more than 700 million tons. In 2015, vegetable production contributed about 10% to farmers' income. However, while the vegetable industry is developing rapidly, there are also some problems affecting the healthy development of the industry.
Looking at the industry: reducing costs and ensuring safety have become urgent tasks
Zhao Jibin, chairman of the Anshanghu Melon and Vegetable Planting Professional Cooperative from Changle County, Shandong Province, said: "Growing vegetables is delicate work. Without putting in effort, you cannot manage it, and in addition, pesticides, chemical fertilizers and other inputs are used relatively heavily, so production costs are relatively high. In the production cost of vegetables, labor costs and input costs account for a very large part. I came to this conference to find ways to reduce costs."
"Moreover, pesticides and chemical fertilizers are prone to excessive or non-standard use, leading to frequent vegetable quality and safety problems in recent years, which have become the focus of attention from all sectors of society," said Xue Liang, president of the China Vegetable Association. "Excessively high production costs and difficulty in ensuring quality and safety have become the two main bottlenecks affecting the development of the vegetable industry. How to 'reduce costs and ensure safety' has become an urgent task for the development of the vegetable industry."
Zhang Zhongqiu frankly said that in recent years, vegetable price fluctuations between years and seasons have occurred from time to time, and situations of "cheap vegetables hurting farmers" have also appeared many times. This requires focusing on reducing vegetable production costs while promoting balanced supply of vegetable products. During the "13th Five-Year Plan" period, vegetable production should focus on reducing costs and addressing shortcomings. Especially under the current situation of declining agricultural product prices, efforts should be made to adjust and optimize the structure and accelerate the structural reform of the agricultural supply side; efforts should be made to promote cost savings and efficiency gains and extend the value chain of agricultural products. At the same time, vegetable quality and safety have become the focus of attention of the whole society. Although the pass rate of annual routine national inspections for agricultural residues in vegetables has remained above 96% for 8 consecutive years, because vegetable production is dominated by scattered farmers, and there are many varieties and variable planting and cultivation methods, vegetable quality and safety problems still occur from time to time in some varieties in some areas. How to ensure vegetable quality and safety is the "lifeline" related to the healthy development of the vegetable industry.
Reducing costs: renovating old greenhouses saves more than 1/3 of labor
Not long ago, during an interview in Shouguang City, the "hometown of facility vegetables in China," the reporter learned that farmers here have advanced the project of "changing old greenhouses into new ones." The newly built fifth-generation greenhouses generally reach 150 m in length, 17-18 m in width, and up to 7.5 m in height, with an internal area of more than 2,500 sq m, which can reach twice that of old-style greenhouses. Because the greenhouse body is enlarged, integrated water and fertilizer management, automatic ventilation, spraying, small machinery for land preparation, ridging, and transportation equipment and technologies are generally used inside the greenhouses. Thanks to improved facilities and the application of machinery, labor for vegetable production has been reduced by more than 1/3, chemical fertilizer input has been reduced by more than 60%, and pesticide input has been reduced by about 90%.
"For the same vegetable cultivation, lower costs and better products reflect Shouguang's industrial competitiveness," Xue Liang told the reporter.
In front of the booth of Jiangsu Lvgang Modern Agriculture Development Co., Ltd., quite a few vegetable industry practitioners gathered to inspect integrated water and fertilizer management equipment. "This technology saves labor, water, and fertilizer, and is one of the main promoted technologies at this stage for reducing vegetable production costs," said Yuan Guojie, the company's technical manager.
It is understood that around improving the level of mechanization and facility-based production in vegetable production and reducing vegetable production costs, this year's Vegetable Industry Conference held a special forum. Yang Qichang, a researcher at the Institute of Environment and Sustainable Development in Agriculture of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, and others gave special reports on Chinese and foreign vegetable facility equipment. Delegates also visited on site the mechanized ridging and transplanting of vegetables.
Zhang Zhongqiu said that facility-based production should be combined with integrated water and fertilizer management, the Internet of Things, and other vegetable automation and intelligent technologies to achieve precise management of greenhouse irrigation, fertilizer and pesticide use, and so on, so as to achieve cost savings, high efficiency, and safety in vegetable production. In addition, China's level of mechanization in vegetable production is still relatively low, estimated at only about 20%. Relevant research institutes, production enterprises, and vegetable producers should strengthen collaboration, accelerate the introduction, research and development, and application of vegetable machinery, and raise the level of mechanization in vegetable production substantially as soon as possible.
Ensuring safety: "tailor-made" prevention and control plans
At the venue, Nanjing Yilong Gaoke Co., Ltd. and Shandong Sunshine Runtu Technology Co., Ltd. coincidentally displayed ozone physical prevention and control systems for fruit and vegetable diseases. The difference is that Yilong Gaoke uses the "airflow organization method" to rapidly diffuse high-concentration ozone in the greenhouse, while Sunshine Runtu provides integrated ozone water application technology.
At the chive planting base located in Chaijia Town, Zhangqiu City, green integrated prevention and control technologies such as ozone aqueous solution spraying and insect-proof nets were applied. Test results showed that the effective killing rate of the technology reached more than 90%, with no drug residue at all, and the yield increase rate reached 60%.
Beijing Zhongjie Sifang Biotechnology Co., Ltd. brought biological prevention and control technology centered on insect pheromones. The integrated application of technologies such as insect viruses, natural enemy insects, bumblebee pollination, insect-proof nets, and sticky insect boards "tailor-made" prevention and control plans for various vegetables, maximizing the comprehensive effect of combining biological control with physical control.
Soil continuous cropping obstacles are also one of the difficulties troubling vegetable production at this stage. Therefore, encouraging the use of biological fertilizers and organic fertilizers, promoting substrate cultivation technologies such as coconut coir, and applying flame insect control and soil ecological reducing agents have also become important contents of this conference.
To ensure vegetable quality and safety, in addition to doing a good job in the supervision of inputs and the construction of the testing system in terms of "managing it well," it is even more important in terms of "producing it well," and comprehensively promoting green prevention and control technology is the main focus at this stage.