How to find the other half of agriculture

Fruit and straw are the fruits of agricultural production, people often cherish the fruit, but ignore the value of the other half of the straw. To do a good job in the comprehensive utilization of straw is to find the "other half" of agriculture.

Recently, the small straw has become the main player of the news again. The causal relationship between straw burning and haze days has caused a lot of controversy. Fortunately, this time, beyond the voices of experts, officials, and city dwellers, there were more voices of farmers: "there are more than 3000 jin of corn straw per mu, so it is useless to stay in the field, and it will cost freight to transport it out, and there is a shortage of labor in the autumn harvest. Who cares about straw?" "planting wheat immediately after the autumn harvest, it is not convenient to crush the straw and leave the stubble high, but it is still the most convenient to burn."

Such a sound truly reflects the difficulties in the prohibition of straw burning, and in the final analysis, it is a problem of comprehensive utilization. With the development of the times, the function of straw as firewood has basically disappeared, while the comprehensive utilization of other functions, such as biomass fuel, power generation, returning field, feed and so on, is still faced with many constraints.

Many people call straw the other half of agriculture. This is because in an agricultural production cycle, fruit and straw are the fruits of agricultural production, fruit is the food that people cherish, and the value of straw as the other half of the achievement is often ignored. The comprehensive utilization of straw is of great significance for solving agricultural non-point source pollution, promoting agricultural sustainable development and the construction of ecological civilization.

The most important way to use straw is to return to the field, which is also a common practice in developed countries. The United States produces 450 million tons of crop straw annually, and the amount of straw returned to the field accounts for 68% of the straw production. But in our country, the proportion of straw crushing and returning to the field is not high, where is the crux of the problem? First, the cost of returning straw to the field is high, which requires high horsepower agricultural machinery operation, and the fuel consumption and cost are much higher than ordinary agricultural machinery. although some places give a subsidy of 20 yuan per mu, it is only equivalent to 1 pound of the actual cost, and the rest has to be borne by the farmers themselves. Second, the technology of returning straw to the field is not mature, farmers feel that the shredded land affects sowing, do not feel the benefits of returning to the field, and are not willing to accept this way.

In addition to returning to the field, other uses of straw must first be transported from the field, the technical term is "leaving the field", which is a key step to realize the commercialization of straw. But at present, due to the imperfect collection, storage and transportation system, the cost of leaving the field is on the high side, which has become the most important restricting factor affecting the comprehensive utilization of straw. According to a survey conducted by the Ministry of Agriculture, the cost of returning straw to the field is about 9% of the net income of crops in a single season, and the cost of leaving the field is about 15%, 30%.

To find the other half of agriculture, we must first rely on policy guidance and subsidies. China's existing policies are lack of corresponding policies and measures in the weak links such as straw collection, storage and transportation and the application of terminal products, which is not conducive to the formation of a complete industrial chain. A series of supporting policies for comprehensive utilization of straw should be introduced at the national level, including subsidies for the application of end products, straw returning and agricultural machinery operations. In particular, it is necessary to introduce subsidy policies to support the construction of straw collection, storage and transportation sites, and give preferential support in land use, electricity consumption, transportation, taxation and other aspects. In view of the lack of capital investment, we should also form a multi-level, multi-channel and diversified investment mechanism guided by financial investment, with the input of enterprises and farmers as the main body.

The second is to speed up the research and development and promotion of advanced and practical technologies. At present, China has developed the "five materials" utilization of straw (biomass fuel, biogas raw materials, feed, fertilizer, base materials), but there are still some problems in some key technologies and equipment, such as high cost, low efficiency, impractical and so on. as a result, the acceptance of farmers is low and it is difficult to popularize. Therefore, it is necessary to force R & D and innovation according to the actual demand, and make more efforts in practical, low-cost and other aspects.

The most important thing is to establish a market-oriented and industrialized operation mechanism for the comprehensive utilization of straw, so that the hand of the market can play a more important role. Take enterprises as the main body, organically link straw collection with ecological cultivation, straw energy and straw raw materials, promote specialized production, integrated management, social service, and explore replicable and popularable business models.