The grain-growing story of Xu Congxiang, a major national grain producer
As an outstanding representative on the agricultural science popularization front in Anhui Province, he took part in research on regional trials and production trials of new crop varieties across the province, and also participated in national agricultural science popularization and extension research, generating hundreds of millions of yuan in benefits for agriculture and income for farmers in the Huang-Huai region--
Profile: Xu Congxiang, born in 1953, currently Deputy Secretary of the Party General Branch and Director of the Village Committee of Zhanghuai Village, Jiuxian Town, Taihe County; National Model Worker; major national grain producer; national leader in science popularization for benefiting farmers and revitalizing villages; delegate to the 8th Party Congress of Anhui Province of the CPC; and deputy to the 2nd and 3rd People's Congresses of Fuyang City.
In 2007, wheat in Zhanghuai Village, with a good harvest of 607.3 kg, set a new historical record for the highest wheat yield per unit area in Anhui Province; soybean average yield per mu reached 180 kg, setting the record for the highest average yield per unit area of contiguous high-protein quality soybean in the Huang-Huai region. The person who created this miracle is Xu Congxiang, a science popularization leader who closely relies on the organization of the agricultural technology association and vigorously promotes new agricultural technologies and new achievements.
Xu Congxiang holds freshly harvested wheat in his hands, his heart filled with joy. (Photo by Sun Jianguo)
In 2005, with approval from the relevant departments, Xu Congxiang took the lead in establishing the "Taihe County Quality and High-Efficiency Agricultural Technology Association." Under the association are 13 science popularization study groups--including pollution-free cultivation, improved seed breeding, high-yield research, water-saving irrigation, scientific breeding, agricultural product purchasing and marketing, science and technology information, and new rural construction--and 23 township science popularization branch associations. It now has 2,363 members and 6,258 science popularization demonstration households, covering almost all townships in the county. Each year, the association popularizes and extends more than 10 new technologies and new achievements, generating tens of millions of yuan in social benefits, and has also turned a number of extremely poor households into science popularization demonstration households.
A single seed can change a world; a single agricultural science and technology can greatly increase crop yields. To vigorously popularize and extend new agricultural technologies, Xu Congxiang, based on more than 30 years of practical experience, compiled high-quality, high-yield cultivation techniques for wheat and soybean into a booklet in an easy-to-understand proverb format, and made wall charts, which he distributed free of charge to villagers and members. His compiled cultivation technique regulations for quality wheat in the Huang-Huai region with a yield of over 1,000 jin per mu and the science popularization reader on supporting high-yield cultivation techniques for new high-protein soybean varieties were appraised by provincial agricultural experts as provincial-level scientific and technological achievements and have been promoted and used throughout the province.
To meet the needs of villagers and members for scientific farming, Xu Congxiang was the first in the county to establish a farmers' science popularization library, purchasing a DVD player and various science popularization books at his own expense. In recent years, the contiguous agricultural science popularization demonstration park of several thousand mu that he organized has implemented a "five unifications" model of improved varieties, formula fertilization, planting management, mechanical harvesting and threshing, and order-based sale at a higher price, increasing the average yield per mu of wheat and soybean in the village's low-yield low-lying land by more than 30 percent compared with outside the project, raising the comprehensive output value by 300 yuan per mu, and increasing Zhanghuai Village's annual income by nearly one million yuan.
At present, the quality wheat and soybean science popularization demonstration park created by Xu Congxiang has been recognized by the Provincial Agricultural Commission as a pollution-free agricultural product base and a quality wheat improved seed breeding base, and has been named by the Provincial Department of Science and Technology as a "core demonstration area of the province's grain abundance project." The new quality super-high-yield wheat variety Taiyu 976 that he painstakingly bred showed very obvious yield-increasing effects in provincial regional trials; the new soybean variety Taifeng No. 3 that he bred, tested by the Soybean Quality Supervision, Inspection and Testing Center of the Ministry of Agriculture, has a total crude protein content 5 percentage points higher than ordinary soybean. Recently, the Ministry of Agriculture has decided to establish in Zhanghuai Village Anhui Province's only thousand-mu contiguous core demonstration area for high-protein soybean and a ten-thousand-mu soybean demonstration area.
[Personal reflections]
The greatest joy in life is contributing to society; making agriculture more efficient and promoting farmers' income growth is my eternal pursuit.