Veteran Agricultural Inputs Expert Talks About Spring Plowing: Hoping for Both Organic and High Yield
Original title: A "Green Spring" in the Heart of an Elderly Agricultural Inputs Veteran
In the grassroots ecology of China's rural areas, there is a special group of people called agricultural inputs practitioners. They are farmers, yet they make their living selling agricultural inputs; they are merchants, yet they provide villagers with technical guidance on fertilizing and using pesticides; they are "local experts," yet they shoulder the burden of promoting and implementing agricultural technology and new types of agricultural input products. It can be said that at a stage when the agricultural technology extension system has not yet achieved full coverage and the new-type professional farmer workforce has not yet fully become the main force, China's green and sustainable agricultural development and the realization of the goal of increasing farmers' incomes and helping them achieve moderate prosperity cannot do without this force.
Xu Jiang introduces the biological pesticide-fertilizer formula packages to farmers who have come to learn at the agricultural inputs store.
On March 27, the reporter came to the Shenbei Seed and Agricultural Inputs Wholesale Market located in Shenbei New District, Shenyang City, Liaoning Province. Stores selling pesticides, chemical fertilizers, and seeds of all kinds stood one next to another. There was a store named "Green Spring Science and Technology Agricultural Inputs Center." The storefront was ordinary, and compared with the surrounding stores it even seemed somewhat narrow and simple.
But this shop is the distillation of Xu Jiang's long-held adherence to the "green" concept.
Xu Jiang was once a teacher, and he is still a teacher now. With retirement as the dividing line, what he taught before were "aerospace courses," and what he teaches after are "agricultural technology courses." Focusing on biological fertilizers and biological pesticides, he has launched green package cultivation technologies according to different crops. Already approaching his eighties, he still travels among farmers' greenhouses to promote technology, still keeps waiting for the arrival of the "green spring" of biological fertilizers and biological pesticides, and still studies practical organic green agricultural product cultivation techniques for farmers.
With pesticide-fertilizer packages, far less spraying is needed
"Teacher Xu is our benefactor. If this year's net income exceeds 100,000, I'll treat Teacher Xu to a meal with all the extra, haha." Lan Lili, a large-scale vegetable grower in Da Wan Village, Yujiafang Town, Liaozhong County, Shenyang City, Liaoning Province, said while busy harvesting cabbage. "Teacher Xu" is Xu Jiang. Farmers all call him that, and before she got to know Xu Jiang, Lan Lili's greenhouse growing was not going smoothly.
In 2012, 31-year-old Lan Lili needed both to take care of her child at home and to earn money for the household, so she started greenhouse cultivation in the village. But lack of experience and years of losses basically made her lose confidence in growing, and at one point she contracted out the vast majority of her greenhouses to others, keeping only two for herself. Early last year, the vegetable market was poor, and the contract holders left one after another without even saying goodbye. Left with no choice, she had to plant all the greenhouses again.
In April last year, a spell of low temperatures caused the grapes in Lan Lili's greenhouse to develop gray mold, and she sought "medical help" everywhere. It just so happened that a staff member from Green Spring Science and Technology Agricultural Inputs was in the village doing promotion, and the staff member told her to go directly to Xu Jiang. After diagnosis and treatment, Lan Lili's greenhouse avoided losses.
The reporter saw that the grapes, tomatoes, and green beans she grew in her greenhouse were all verdant and neat. She said: "The most troublesome thing about growing in greenhouses is spraying. Last year when there was disease, I basically had to carry the sprayer into the field every day, sometimes spraying twice a day. This year, following Teacher Xu's package, I spray once every 7-10 days, with prevention first, and it's so much easier!"
"Prevention first, with emphasis on persistence. With fewer spraying times, the amount of pesticide used is also much less than before. Although biological pesticides are slightly more expensive, they are used less. Calculated this way, farmers still save money, and the key is that the effect is also good." Xu Jiang said that being guided by the "green" concept stems from the public's demand for green, organic, and other agricultural products. Over the years, Xu Jiang has formed his own set of biological fertilizer and biological pesticide formula package systems, and has continuously practiced and promoted them through methods such as dealer networks and direct coaching of growing farmers.
Able to teach aerospace, and also able to teach agricultural technology
In 1998, just as he was about to retire from his teaching post at Shenyang Aerospace University, Xu Jiang developed bronchitis. In the process of seeking medical treatment, he learned that "chitosan" can improve human immunity. He tried it himself and it was effective, but Xu Jiang began to consider another matter: "This stuff is effective for human illness, so it should also be effective for plants."
It was this simple idea that, over nearly two decades, transformed him from a "teacher cultivating aerospace talent" before retirement into a "technician serving farmers."
In 1999, at a "chitosan" seminar, Xu Jiang got to know researcher Wang Shikui of the Planning and Design Institute of the Ministry of Agriculture. At that time, Wang Shikui was studying the application of "chitosan" in agriculture and had already achieved some results. Xu Jiang brought the results back to Shenyang and promoted them in rural areas, and farmers found them effective. From then on, Xu Jiang embarked on the promotion of biological pesticides and biological fertilizers.
"There are many biological fertilizers and pesticides on the market now, with good and bad mixed together, very hard to certify, and the effects are hard to assess. Teacher Xu has done a lot of screening in this area." said Wu Jianli, technical consultant of Shenyang Liuhe Ecological Park, which uses Xu Jiang's biological fertilizer and pesticide packages. Although he is getting older and older, Xu Jiang has not stopped. He attends agricultural input product exhibitions all over the country, and looks at nothing else, only focusing on biological pesticides and biological fertilizers.
It is precisely this persistence that leads Xu Jiang to formulate, every year, full-season biological pesticide and fertilizer application (package) technologies for different crops such as grapes, cucumbers, strawberries, green beans, and leafy vegetables. During the interview, the reporter saw that the packages specified the types, quantities, and frequencies of pesticide and fertilizer use for each cultivation and management stage, and calculated the pesticide costs in detail. As long as farmers and dealers have a single technical sheet in hand, they need not worry about a season of planting and guidance. Lan Lili said: "This technical sheet is the prescription Teacher Xu writes, and I can just use the pesticide according to the prescription like a 'simpleton'!"
Can "organic, green" and "high yield" be achieved together?
On the morning of March 27, buses carrying tour groups brought visitors into Liuhe Ecological Park in the suburbs of Shenyang. The visitors walked into the greenhouses and picked and tasted strawberries. Since it began operating more than a year ago, Liuhe Ecological Park has already begun to take shape, and the quality of its strawberries has also been recognized. At the recently concluded 11th China (Liaoning·Liaoyang) Strawberry Culture Tourism Festival and China Strawberry Challenge, the strawberries grown at Liuhe Ecological Park were awarded the gold prize.
These strawberries used the "Technology for the Full-Season Use of Biological Fertilizers and Pesticides (Package) in Strawberry Cultivation (2015-2016 Edition)" introduced by Xu Jiang. For Wu Jianli, the reason for choosing Xu Jiang's set of technologies is that the ecological park wants to develop in the direction of green food certification and organic food certification.
Wu Jianli said: "What certification values most are the various testing indicators in the soil, while for intermediate inputs such as pesticides and fertilizers, it mainly looks at the ecological park's agricultural input purchase records. To a large extent, what pesticides and fertilizers were actually used depends mainly on the ecological park's own capacity for self-regulation. We truly want to do organic agriculture, and Teacher Xu's set of technologies exactly meets the demand."
As people's living standards improve, they pay more and more attention to food safety, and more and more people will choose organic or green food. But there are also many differing views. Some people attribute food health problems to pesticides and chemical fertilizers. During interviews, the reporter often heard statements such as "our vegetables are all grown without spraying pesticides or using chemical fertilizers," and also views such as "without chemical fertilizers, using only organic fertilizer will greatly reduce yields, and pests and diseases will also be severe," and even "organic" and "green" have become marketing gimmicks for some merchants. From people's awareness to industry self-discipline and regulation, the "green" industry still has many problems that need to be solved.
The public's demonization of pesticides and chemical fertilizers is not because pesticides and chemical fertilizers are bad, but because of the problem of severe overapplication. Applying them reasonably, in the right amounts, and according to proper patterns can absolutely produce safe food.