Fallow land is not abandoned land: don't let fallowed land go to waste

Fallow is meant to let the land rest and recover, consolidating and raising grain production capacity by combining land use with land nourishment; during the fallow period, farmland management and protection and the restoration of soil fertility must not be neglected either.

1.16 million mu: this is the total area of the national fallow farmland pilot program confirmed this year. Although it accounts for only a small share of the "total pie" of national farmland area, it signals a new beginning. Reports show that the pilot areas, concentrated in groundwater funnel zones, heavy metal contaminated areas and areas of severe ecological degradation, are now determining their own fallow models according to local conditions.

Land is the mother of crops and an important factor in agricultural production. To let the land rest and recover, traditional farming culture has always valued fallowing. In modern agricultural production, fallowing is also a commonly used measure for farmland protection. But for some time in the past, the pressure of grain supply kept China's land under long-term high-intensity operation, unable to stop and catch its breath.

Especially in recent years, China's grain production has achieved "twelve consecutive increases." Continuous increases are certainly welcome, but they have also come at a heavy cost, with the ecological environment acting as an ever-tightening "headband" constraining agriculture. On the one hand, agricultural resources have long been overdrawn and over-exploited, with large-scale land reclamation, lake reclamation for farmland and groundwater extraction, and the string of resource use is being pulled tighter and tighter. On the other hand, agricultural non-point source pollution has worsened, soil has degraded, and the carrying capacity of the ecological environment is getting closer and closer to its limit, with the "red light" already flashing.

Facing pressure on resources and the environment, taking advantage of the current comfortable environment of ample grain supply to carry out pilot programs for a farmland fallow system in some areas can both let the overly exhausted farmland catch its breath and recover from fatigue, allowing the ecology to be treated and restored; and, by improving the soil and building up soil fertility, strengthen the staying power of agricultural development and realize "storing grain in the land."

The benefits of fallowing have become a consensus, but there are still concerns in the industry about how to advance it. The first is how to truly let the land rest. Earlier this year, when I was covering spring plowing production, I once chatted with an agricultural system official about fallowing. In his view, if supporting policies are lacking, getting farmers to fallow their land simply cannot be achieved. On the one hand, farmers face real pressure in daily life; on the other hand, changing farmers' planting habits and getting them to adapt to new planting methods also takes time.

At present, to make farmers willing to fallow, the pilot plan clearly proposes fallow subsidy standards for different regions, ensuring that farmers' income is comparable to their original planting returns and is not affected. What urgently needs to be implemented now is that whether subsidies are paid in cash or in the form of grain-equivalent in-kind payments, they must be delivered to farmers in full, without the slightest deduction, so that they have a real "sense of gain." At the same time, fallow technical models should be formulated and improved as soon as possible by region and by crop, and corresponding technical guidance should be provided to farmers so that they can adapt to changes in farming methods.

In advancing fallowing, a more important issue is how to ensure that land rests without going to waste. Some people worry that after farmland is fallowed, farmers may simply leave it alone: will good farmland grow weeds in one year, trees in three years, and be basically abandoned after a few years? It needs to be made clear that fallowing is meant to let the land rest and recover, consolidating and raising grain production capacity by combining land use with land nourishment. Therefore, during the fallow period, farmland management and protection must not be neglected either. Farmers should be guided and supported in planting green manure and other soil-nourishing crops to restore soil fertility, so that the land rests without going to waste and rests without being ruined, and fallowed land must never be allowed to become overgrown. Another reminder: although farmland is idle after fallowing, its use must not be changed, and vigilance must be maintained against non-agriculturalization.

Land is both the "lifeblood" of grain production and the fundamental guarantee on which farmers depend for survival. To advance fallowing smoothly, we must both calculate the big account of food security and make the small account work for farmers. Only in this way can exhausted farmland set out again after a good rest.