Three-Summer Perspective: Signals Released by Agricultural Supply-Side Reform
Structural adjustment targets market shortcomings, green technology models drive high yield and high efficiency, and the role of new types of business entities as a vital force becomes prominent, thereby revealing the income-increasing effect for Shanxi farmers - "This year, my family used the newest wheat seed variety, which can prevent pests and diseases and also increase yield. In previous years, before summer harvest we had to spray 3 times, costing nearly 30 yuan per mu. This year not only did we save the money on spraying, but the per-mu yield also reached 500 kg." In Shangma Village, Shangma Office, Houma City, Zhou Caixia's family had bags of wheat piled up as high as a small mountain.
Another bumper harvest season! This is already the 13th consecutive bumper harvest year for our province's summer grain, and it is also a harvest of reform achieved against the background of advancing agricultural supply-side structural reform and in the continuous deepening development of "adjusting structure and transforming mode" in grain production. From relatively emphasizing yield to pursuing the all-round development of "yield, quality, ecology"; from single technological renewal to coordinated innovation in seed, water, fertilizer, pesticide, machinery and more; from keeping one's head down and only farming to producing according to market demand, the new characteristics, new trends and new results embodied in this year's "Three-Summer" not only opened up the situation and explored a path for agricultural structural adjustment during the "13th Five-Year Plan" period, but also boosted confidence in "improving quality and efficiency, transforming the mode, and achieving stable grain production and sustainable income growth."
Structural Adjustment Targets Market Shortcomings
The most prominent problem on the agricultural supply side is the coexistence of "difficulty in buying" and "difficulty in selling." At present, some old problems in the development of our province's crop farming still remain. Among grain crops, there is a supply-demand contradiction featuring a large wheat shortage and a temporary surplus of corn. Public data from the Shanxi Provincial Grain Bureau show that in 2015, our province produced 2.714 billion kg of wheat, with a production-demand gap of 3 billion kg. To make the most of advantages and avoid disadvantages, further adjusting and optimizing the crop farming structure is very urgent for our province.
Wheat is our province's most important staple grain, and stabilizing wheat production is of great significance. A reporter learned from the Provincial Department of Agriculture that our province will develop high-quality special-purpose wheat and develop contract production. It will introduce, breed, demonstrate and promote a group of varieties with high yield, high quality, disease resistance, lodging resistance and strong stress resistance, and give play to the yield-increasing potential of superior varieties. It will integrate and promote cost-saving and efficiency-increasing cultivation techniques to ensure that wheat area remains stable and production levels steadily improve.
In terms of planting regional layout, the province will stabilize the south, restore and expand winter wheat planting area in the central region, and moderately develop spring wheat in the north. Advantageous areas such as Yuncheng, Linfen and Jincheng should work hard on improving quality, saving costs and increasing efficiency, and develop high-quality strong-gluten wheat. In terms of planting models, it will vigorously promote the practical technology of furrow sowing with moisture testing for dryland wheat, improve planting efficiency, and strive to stabilize the province's wheat planting area at more than 10 million mu and output at more than 2.5 billion kg by 2020, while striving to raise the level of staple grain self-sufficiency. At the same time, moderately reduce corn planting.
Adjustment in production is only the beginning. The resulting extension of the wheat processing industry chain, as well as technological innovation, marketing model innovation, management model innovation and industry-university-research integration model innovation in agricultural product processing and food manufacturing, further advance the transformation and upgrading of the entire industry chain.
Farmer Cui Luxun from Dongtan, Huafeng Township, Yuanqu County, grew 6.5 mu of wheat. Even though a crop of corn had already been planted on pure dryland, the second-crop wheat still reached a per-mu yield of 654.7 kg, 22.2 kg higher than the province's historical record for dryland wheat of 632.5 kg. He said, "This was through the application of an efficient scientific and technological integrated wheat technology under the explanation and guidance of Professor Wang Mengliang of Shanxi University."
Under the guidance of the Institute of Applied Chemistry of Shanxi University and Shanda New Technology Development Co., Ltd., dryland organic wheat flour currently produced by farm mills in Donghe Village and Nanlian Village of Yuanqu County has already sold more than 8 tons in Taiyuan, with an increasingly high consumer return rate.
The reform signals in the wheat market are strongly released from summer grain production and have even more profoundly affected the development of the entire industry.
Green Technology Models Drive High Yield and High Efficiency
Looking at the development of grain production in recent years, although grain harvests have been bumper year after year, some problems have also emerged. Extensive management, heavy use of water and fertilizer, and irrational application of pesticides have been relatively prominent. These not only waste agricultural resources, pollute the environment and raise production costs, but also affect the quality of agricultural products. Transforming the agricultural development mode is urgently needed.
This year's golden waves of wheat were infused with a strong sense of green. Villagers in Kouzili Village, Duandian Township, Yaodu District, Linfen City, achieved a bumper harvest of dryland wheat, with the highest per-mu yield reaching 300 kg. These plots are the 1,000-mu demonstration field of the Linfen City Agricultural Technology Extension Station, mainly used to promote a dryland wheat variety called Linfen 3. Linfen 3 was developed by the Dryland Wheat Breeding Research Office of the Wheat Research Institute of the Shanxi Academy of Agricultural Sciences.
Because this variety combines drought resistance, high quality and high yield, it is deeply recognized by wheat farmers in production demonstrations and has also been affirmed by agricultural technology departments. It has been promoted cumulatively over more than 20 million mu in Shanxi Province and surrounding provinces.
During summer harvest, a straw crusher was installed on the combine harvester, so while harvesting wheat, all the wheat straw was also crushed and returned to the field. Villager Guo Laixi told the reporter that after wheat straw is returned to the field, the organic matter content of the cultivated land increases, and it can also retain water and fertilizer, increase crop yield, and reduce the use of chemical fertilizers, saving money and being environmentally friendly.
Different from the past "yield-only" technology model of high input and high consumption, new-style harvesters that integrate straw baling make planting and harvesting machinery increasingly labor-saving and efficient. These measures have effectively reduced production costs and improved operational benefits. It is precisely these green technology models that support the realization of high yield and high efficiency in summer grain. Green technology models can not only "reduce costs," but also "raise per-unit yield" and "raise production capacity." Under the explanation and guidance of Professor Wang Mengliang, farmers in Dongtan Village, Huafeng Township, Yuanqu County, changed the past phenomenon of heavily applying chemical fertilizers in pursuit of yield, which led to serious problems of nitrite residue and soil compaction. They packaged technologies such as the same-hole sowing technique for wheat seeds and biological fertilizer seed fertilizer, "moving weeding earlier" in field management, and 333 management including "three sprays and three defenses" throughout the growth period, forming a highly efficient integrated wheat technology system.
It can be seen from summer grain production that transforming the agricultural production mode and resource utilization mode and implementing the strategy of scientific and technological innovation, and promptly promoting the transformation of agricultural development from being driven by input of material factors to being driven by scientific and technological progress, are both a need for improving the agricultural ecological environment and a guarantee for advancing agricultural cost savings and efficiency increases and promoting farmers' income growth.
The Role of New Types of Business Entities as a Vital Force Becomes Prominent
"It takes about 20 minutes to finish harvesting one mu of wheat field, very fast!" said Han Xigang, a farmer in Shidian Village, Shangma Office, Houma City. "In recent years, farming has become more and more labor-saving, with full mechanization. With a few phone calls, everything from harvesting to sowing is solved. After harvesting, the wheat is even delivered directly home, a one-stop service, and the price is very favorable. For my family's land, harvesting and sowing together took less than two hours in total, and it did not delay my work time. My enthusiasm for farming has even increased."
Machine operator Xu Hongliang has participated in summer harvest operations for more than ten years and is already a veteran operator. He told the reporter, "Today's harvesters have large horsepower, fast harvesting speed and high quality. In the past two years, the county has paid more and more attention to grain production, and some policies introduced have become more favorable. There are wheat subsidies for growing wheat and agricultural machinery subsidies for buying combine harvesters."
Feng Jianmin, deputy director of the Houma City Agricultural Machinery Development Center, introduced that in order to do a good job in summer harvest, the agricultural machinery department of Houma City established "wheat machine harvesting and cross-regional operation service reception stations" along major transportation routes to provide information consultation, machine scheduling and other services to operating machines. At the same time, an emergency rescue detachment was formed. Once disastrous weather occurs, it will be quickly and orderly put into disaster resistance and reduction work to minimize losses in grain production.
In addition, "field nannies" have become a new fashion in rural areas nowadays. Jia Zhenfang, an elderly person over 60 in Zuobei Village, Hongtong County, has children all working elsewhere and no labor force at home, so she entrusted all the "Three-Summer" farm work to the village's "field nanny."
The "field nanny" Jia Zhenfang referred to is a machine operator from the village's agricultural machinery cooperative. These "professional farmers" who remain in the village specifically handle farm work. They own various agricultural machines and have skilled agricultural machinery operation techniques. A few people can handle the farm work of the whole village.
The reason "field nannies" have become a new fashion in the village is ultimately a practical need. Zhang Genping, Party secretary of Zuobei Village, said that their village has more than 2,000 mu of cultivated land and more than 2,000 people. Now more than 700 strong laborers are working elsewhere, and those left in the village are either women and children or elderly people with little labor capacity. Therefore, every household relies entirely on "field nannies" for farm work.
New types of agricultural business entities characterized by moderate-scale operation have more clearly played the role of a vital force in reform. This is a major trend presented by this year's summer grain production. In this year's summer grain production, the benign interaction between agricultural supply-side structural reform and new types of agricultural business entities vividly proves that it is necessary to fully mobilize the enthusiasm of all types of business entities, accelerate the construction of a modern agricultural management system based on household farm management, linked by cooperation and association, and supported by socialized services, while vigorously cultivating new types of business entities and new professional farmers, and encouraging them to become a vital force in advancing agricultural supply-side structural reform.