The best way out for comprehensive straw utilisation may lie in ecological agriculture

Data from the National Development and Reform Commission shows that in 2015 the collectable amount of straw nationwide was close to 900 million tonnes, with about 720 million tonnes utilised, a comprehensive utilisation rate of 80.11%, 11.41 percentage points higher than in 2008. Even so, every summer busy season and autumn harvest, straw becomes a headache for officials and farmers alike: officials camp out in the fields to keep watch, farmers seize the chance to set one fire, and wave after wave of "guerrilla warfare" keeps playing out. Clearly, blocking is not a good approach, so the answer is to dredge. This journal conducted an exclusive interview with Jiang Gaoming, a researcher at the Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Environmental Economy: A casual search online these days turns up countless reports about straw burning bans in various places. Straw is not a new thing, so why has it become a problem in recent years?

Jiang Gaoming: There are only two reasons. First, the rural energy structure has changed. Clean energy such as gas and electricity has entered rural areas. In the past, straw was a daily necessity for farmers; now it is not needed. Although many rural households have built biogas digesters, they are easy to build but hard to maintain. They work for the first year or two, then fall into disuse, because most of those left behind in rural areas are elderly people who do not have the ability to maintain them. "One digester per household" should be changed to "building large biogas digesters" maintained by professional companies. Since straw in many places is no longer used as firewood or biogas energy, straw has lost another outlet.

Second, growing grain does not make money, quality labour goes to the cities for work, and the elderly left behind have no ability to deal with straw. Grain now sells for a bit over one yuan per jin. Growing two crops a year on one mu, in a good year a high-yield field produces just over two thousand jin of grain, usually between 1600 and 2000 jin, bringing in less than two thousand yuan. Subtract half of that for costs, and calculating on an average of 5 mu per household, the annual income is only four to five thousand yuan. Can that attract farmers to grow grain? Working in the cities is their main source of income, so farming becomes a side occupation. Since it is a side occupation, naturally no labour is invested, so the management style is rather extensive. With all this, if they do not even farm grain properly, would they "wait on" straw? So setting one fire is the simplest but also the most extensive method.

Burning is definitely not acceptable, because it pollutes the environment, but farmers are also forced into it. Not burning affects the planting of the next crop; otherwise they would have to sow by hand and dig the holes a bit deeper, but that increases labour, adding 80 to 100 yuan in cost per mu. Who pays that money? This is a very realistic problem, and farmers all know how to do the accounts.

Environmental Economy: Articles 76 and 77 of the new Air Pollution Law stipulate that local governments must do a good job of banning straw burning and encourage and support comprehensive straw utilisation. How are local governments doing now?

Jiang Gaoming: At the local level, I think "blocking" is done rather strictly, while "dredging" is not done adequately. When this season comes, township leaders sit on the roadside on folding stools watching the farmers, and leaders at all levels drive around on patrol, rushing over to block any fire spot they find. A lot of manpower, material resources and money are spent, but the results are not ideal. The reason township leaders attach so much importance to this is that it is tied to their performance record, so control is relatively strict.

Since farmers are not allowed to burn it, a way out must be found. In my view, the best way out is for straw to go back where it came from, returning straw to the fields as feed and fertiliser. Straw is a product of photosynthesis. Once returned to the field, it can net-absorb the carbon dioxide emitted by industry. We have done such experiments, and the effect is fairly obvious. In the past it was chemical agriculture; now and in the future we need to develop ecological agriculture. The former is a net emitter, the latter a net absorber. Reversing net emission into net fixation, the two together can cut 11.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per hectare per year. The result is still very inspiring.

Next, we want to develop ecological agriculture, and ecological agriculture needs large amounts of high-quality straw, especially photosynthetic products. Even dead branches and fallen leaves, or rotten vegetable leaves, are all treasures. Straw can achieve at least two substitutions: as feed, it can feed sheep and cattle, substituting for grain; fermented straw can substitute for chemical fertiliser, and the technology in this area is already very mature. Many people in China are now doing ecological agriculture, but one of the difficulties they encounter is the lack of organic fertiliser, because using chemical fertiliser makes food taste poor and consumers will not buy it. Turning straw into feed and fertiliser is a very good way out for digesting straw. The state can support a batch of enterprises and run some pilot projects, for example building one large livestock farm and straw processing plant per village. As long as there is profit to be made, someone will do it.

Among these, returning straw to the field after passing through the animal's belly is an important method of straw return. Straw is fed to sheep and cattle, and excreted by the livestock. Part of the straw becomes meat, part becomes energy (methane), and part returns to the field as organic fertiliser. Now soil and farmland pollution is severe, and organic matter content has dropped sharply, averaging less than 1%. Straw can effectively supplement the scarce carbon element in the soil, and some microorganisms in the soil also need carbon salts. Through this method, if organic matter content can be raised to 2%-5%, our grain production potential would be very great.

We have now fallen into a vicious circle: without chemical fertiliser we cannot produce grain, and over time the quality of farmland gets worse and worse. Many people have also been led into a mistaken approach, making straw into processed products such as wooden boards. But straw is only a very small part of that, an auxiliary material, while the main material is a range of chemical products. The straw is utilised, but no less chemical product is used, and even if a straw-made door is very good, it is still not as good as wood.

Environmental Economy: This year the Ministry of Finance, through integration and adjustment, increased the budget by 1 billion yuan, and together with the Ministry of Agriculture, focusing on key areas for accelerating the building of an integrated ecological barrier around the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, selected 10 provinces including Hebei, Shanxi and Inner Mongolia, where the problem of crop straw burning is relatively prominent, to carry out pilot projects on banning crop straw burning and comprehensively utilising straw. Among these, the central government pilot funds adopt a "reward instead of subsidy" approach. How is this different from the past?

Jiang Gaoming: There are now several subsidy methods. First, straw power generation, where the state subsidises the electricity price; second, crushing straw in the field, where the state subsidises the machinery; third, using straw as feed, where the state subsidises large silage pits for raising livestock.

Among these three subsidy methods, the subsidy for straw power generation accounts for a relatively high share, but we have done the accounts: when an enterprise hires workers to collect straw, after deducting transport and labour costs, it loses money, and that is not even counting fuel. If farmers are to deliver straw to the enterprise on their own initiative, it is even harder. "Do not transport grass a hundred li, do not transport grain a thousand li." Never mind a hundred li, nowadays farmers will not even do ten li.

So here comes the problem: if no one is willing to transport straw, what do power plants rely on to generate electricity? Our research found that most power plants mix in coal to generate electricity while earning state subsidies. This practice is certainly wrong, but there is not enough straw, so they have to burn coal, because power plants cannot stop. Some power plants cannot collect straw, so they pile it up as a display model, and whenever someone visits, they are told the straw is there. Fraud by power plants is a common occurrence.

The "reward instead of subsidy" now being mentioned is correct. In the past, whoever polluted benefited, and whoever destroyed was supported. It is like degraded grassland: the degraded grassland instead gets restoration funds, while those doing well get no money. Is this not a disguised encouragement of destruction?

Agricultural subsidies have now also fallen into a mistaken approach. The more the state subsidises pesticides, the cheaper pesticide prices become; the cheaper the price, the more they are used. Who then would still use organic fertiliser? It is troublesome and it stinks. Grain is the same: when the price is cheap, no one cherishes grain, and table waste is enough to feed two hundred million people. If grain were ten yuan per jin, who would still be willing to waste it? We are now all engaged in vicious competition, competing only on quantity and not on quality, without calculating environmental costs or health costs. Otherwise, where would hospitals get so many patients? I suggest the state should reduce or even cancel subsidies for chemical fertilisers and pesticides, and instead directly subsidise farmers or enterprises engaged in ecological agriculture.

Environmental Economy: You mentioned that comprehensive straw utilisation should be combined with ecological agriculture. So what problems will be faced in practice? What suggestions do you have?

Jiang Gaoming: It is mainly a problem of market mechanisms. To put it plainly, the idea is very good, but who will do it? Our grain is too cheap. Last year the protective price for corn was 1.05 yuan, and this year there is not even a protective price. A while ago the price fell below 0.85 yuan, and it has rebounded somewhat recently, but it has not returned to the one yuan level. This phenomenon has severely dampened farmers' enthusiasm for farming.

Our urbanisation rate has now reached 55%, and some say it should continue. If the urbanisation rate reached 98% like in the United States, China would starve many people. Why do I say that? The United States has 2.9 billion mu of farmland, while we have 1.8 billion mu, yet the population of the United States is only a fraction of ours.

So we often say that grain cannot be treated strictly as a commodity; it is a strategic material. Unlike American agriculture, our farmland is relatively tight, and we must grow two crops to ensure food security. If the grain we produce still sells for one yuan per jin, it will not attract farmers to return to their hometowns to farm. I suggest the state should separate grain for people from grain for animals, with high quality at a high price. Otherwise, if everything has to be bought from the United States, it will pose a great threat to national security. Data shows that the grain available for purchase on the international market is about 230 million tonnes, and China has already bought nearly half of it.

I have a preliminary idea. The three northeastern provinces, which produce large amounts of straw on a large scale, are suited to producing some feed grain for animals, while regions with a long history and small farming area should practise intensive cultivation to produce grain for people. Moreover, grain produced for people should be priced 3 to 5 times higher than the market price of grain produced for animals. Consumers can accept this price level. So if the state wants to subsidise, it should subsidise those enterprises that are truly doing the work, subsidising ecological agriculture. The entire agricultural GDP is now 6 trillion yuan. If half of that 6 trillion yuan were ecological agriculture, and in the future 10% of consumers consumed it, then the purchasing power of the cities would be released. This would both protect consumers' own health and use their money to help the state protect the ecological environment. Straw would no longer be burned and would have an outlet, chemical fertiliser and pesticides would be reduced, and this would form a virtuous circle.

Next, we suggest the state purchase ecological services. For example, if straw is not burned but becomes organic fertiliser, that is an ecological service. Whoever does this should benefit, and the state should support it. It would certainly be difficult to have this blossom everywhere, so we might as well use one county as a demonstration. Do not, as in the past, set up several hundred demonstration zones; if not even one village can be done well, can one province do it well? In this way, policy would have direction, and money would be spent where it counts. Not only the Ministry of Agriculture but also the Ministry of Environmental Protection, the Ministry of Science and Technology, and the National Development and Reform Commission all have good ecological projects.

Finally, we must stress that we should not talk about straw for straw's sake alone. Straw is not only an environmental protection issue, but also an agricultural issue, a social issue, and even more a national strategic (food security) issue. In my view, straw is a very good handle: through it we can develop ecological agriculture, and high quality at a high price can also release urban purchasing power. This will be a project for all the people and a project that benefits the people.