Making Agriculture Green: the practical significance of Green Ecological planting

Recently, the head of the Agricultural economy Department of the National Research Center published a signed article in the top state media, expounding the high idea of "making agriculture green." the most "wonderful" paragraph is as follows:

"in recent years, there are many misunderstandings about green agriculture, and some of them even spread widely and have a great influence. For example, as long as chemical fertilizers, pesticides, feed and additives are mentioned, many people will be disgusted; as long as they mention the quality and safety of agricultural products, many people will think of developing organic agriculture and pure natural agriculture. In some public opinion and advertising, quality and safety are often equated with not using chemical fertilizers and pesticides and not feeding feed and additives. In this social atmosphere, to put forward the new goal of making agriculture green and realizing its green development, we must prevent it from going to extremes and blindly resist and reject the application of modern scientific and technological achievements in agriculture. To make agriculture green is by no means to return to traditional agriculture before industrial civilization. Of course, agriculture at that time was green and organic, but how could we feed so many people today with that kind of agriculture? Farming without chemical fertilizers and pesticides and aquaculture without feed and additives can exist in small amounts, but it is difficult to become the mainstream of modern agriculture. The study on the history of agricultural development in China for thousands of years shows that under the conditions of using human and animal power, ploughing and rotation of cultivated land, and relying on human and animal manure to maintain soil fertility, in order to achieve the balance of nitrogen as the main nutrient element, the grain yield per mu can only reach 100 kg. This is a far cry from the 400 kg per mu yield that modern agriculture can achieve. "

The above paragraph contains several intriguing views and their mistakes, which can be explained by the author one by one.

1. The judgment of basic national conditions is still objective.

The minister said that "farming without chemical fertilizers and pesticides and aquaculture without feed and additives" cannot feed China's population of nearly 1.4 billion. This judgment is objective. In Chapter 3 of population Dilemma, the author details the serious consequences of environmental pollution, food pollution and the deterioration of food quality caused by the malignant expansion of population.

"the problem is very clear. In order to solve the problem of 'satiety' for 1.34 billion people, we can only use a large number of chemical fertilizers to increase production, use a large number of pesticides to seize food, use a lot of animal and plant hormones to shorten the growth cycle of animals and plants, so as to increase the production batches, and use a large amount of antibiotics to increase the breeding density of livestock, poultry, fish and shrimp as much as possible. at the same time, agricultural films are also widely used to plunder land fertility. Increase grain production capacity in high, cold and high altitude areas. In addition, we need to use all other scientific and technological means to increase the food supply as much as possible, although the safety of some 'high-tech' means is unknown, such as genetically modified food technology. "all this fails to take into account food pollution and environmental pollution, and can only allow these pollution vicious circles to accumulate and worsen helplessly."

What is obvious is that "if the five 'food production reduction effects' of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, animal and plant hormones, antibiotics and agricultural film are superimposed together, that is, to promote a 'sustainable green ecological food cultivation model' throughout the country, stop the massive use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, animal and plant hormones, antibiotics and agricultural film, then I am afraid that even half of the food produced in our country will not be able to feed."

The reason why the author first affirms the above judgment of the Minister is that this judgment is the basic national conditions of China and the basis for us to discuss the problem. If we ignore this basic national condition, we will seriously misjudge China's future.

2. Misjudge the historic significance of the awakening of public awareness of green ecological and environmental protection.

For more than 30 years, because of the huge population, we can only "feed" our countrymen with chemical fertilizers, pesticides, hormones, antibiotics and genetically modified foods. As a result, we have "fed" a generation of young people and their children. This gradual change of "warm-boiled frogs" has made generations of Chinese people lose their vigilance. However, in recent years, with the exposure of a series of malignant food accidents, as people are plagued by a series of inexplicable diseases, and as young lives suddenly stop because of unexpected cancer, people's awareness of green ecological and environmental protection finally begins to awaken. This "ray of sunshine", which was initially pursued by environmental pioneers, quickly awakened the public. People began to pursue green, ecological and environmental protection, and began to regard chemical fertilizers, pesticides, animal and plant hormones as poisons, and as the Minister said, people began to advocate "organic agriculture, pure natural agriculture". And "spread widely and have a great influence".

This is undoubtedly a great progress in Chinese society, but, unfortunately, the minister defines this great progress as a "misunderstanding of green agriculture".

3. Low-level common sense errors

The reason why the minister regards green agriculture as a "misunderstanding" is due to a very low-level common sense mistake. He deliberately falsified data and said, "the study of the history of agricultural development in China for thousands of years shows that under the conditions of using human and animal power, continuous ploughing and rotation of cultivated land, and relying on human and animal manure to maintain soil fertility, it is necessary to achieve a balance of nitrogen, a major nutrient element. the yield of grain per mu can only reach 100 kg. This is a far cry from the 400 kg per mu yield that modern agriculture can achieve.

Natural agriculture, traditional agriculture, "grain yield per mu can only reach 100 kg"? I can't believe my eyes! This is contrary to the fact that in 1958, the mainstream media "blew" the grain yield per mu into tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of jin, but the nature was just as bad, that is, by virtue of the height of discourse power, it misled the public, intellectuals and academia with data that obviously violated common sense, and misled management and decision-making levels.

As a researcher, a scholar, especially a scholar in an official senior research institution, there should not have been such a low-level common-sense mistake, but the error is real, and the author can only speculate that the minister is either academic incompetent and immoral (high above, not only lack of careful study of historical materials, but also lack of experience of going deep into the grass-roots level and deep into the fields), or academic depravity. If this "strange article" is seen by the central leaders who have been educated youth and cultivated the land, they will be severely reprimanded and scolded. Because this is crazy.

First of all, the basis for the survival of the Chinese nation for thousands of years is natural agriculture and traditional agriculture, which is characterized by "the use of manpower and animal power, and the maintenance of soil fertility by human and animal manure and green manure." If it is really "100 kilograms of grain per mu", how can it develop into a large country with hundreds of millions of people? From 1950 to 1980, China rarely used chemical fertilizers and pesticides. If it is really "100 kilograms of grain per mu", then most of the Chinese people will not starve to death?

Secondly, the historical data of the National Bureau of Statistics do not support the conclusion that "grain yields 100 kg per mu" at all.

In 1952, the national average grain yield per mu was indeed only 88.1 kg/mu, but that was the "national average", that is, the average value calculated by the total grain output of the whole country and the sown area of the whole country, and the sown area of the whole country included a large amount of barren land with extensive planting and thin harvest. In general agricultural areas, if "summer grain + autumn grain" and "early rice + autumn grain" are used to calculate the annual average grain output of the whole country, they are 148.1 kg/mu and 235.9 kg/mu respectively. however, the average annual grain output in the real major grain producing areas is much higher than this average level. (Generally speaking, summer grain mainly includes wheat and early rice, autumn grain mainly includes corn, soybean, one-season rice, middle rice and late rice, but the combination is different in different regions.)

By 1970, the conditions of "manpower and animal power, no fallow cultivation and rotation of cultivated land, and maintenance of soil fertility by human and livestock manure and green manure" were still basically met nationwide. Compared with 1952, the biggest improvement was that many places built irrigation land to change fields. In that year, the average grain yield per mu was 134.1 kg/mu, while the average grain yield calculated by "summer grain + autumn grain" and "early rice + autumn grain" was 218.2 kg/mu and 384.5 kg/mu respectively.

Third, in those areas where natural conditions are particularly favorable, the yield per unit area of intensive cultivation in traditional agriculture is much higher than that in the main grain producing areas. For example, in 1983, when the "contract system" was fully implemented in rural areas throughout the country, the author's immediate superior (secretary of the hydropower plant) went home to harvest rice. At my request, he specially zoned 1 mu of land to calculate the yield. The result was that the weighing exceeded 1500 kg (wet grain) on the spot, which was converted into 1200 kg/mu of yellow grain (dry grain). In the 1970s, the local wheat yield per mu was 400~500 kg/mu, while the annual grain yield per mu was generally able to reach or even exceed 1500 kg/mu (local wheat was planted in small spring and rice was planted in big spring). Around 1980, the local area has begun to use "soil fertilizer" industrial ammonia to increase nitrogen nutrition, but the amount of pesticides is very small. The author spent his youth there and often went deep into the countryside. The local per capita land is only a few points, to feed a large family on so little land, farmers can only do intensive farming to the extreme, coupled with superior climatic conditions, so the yield is "top" in the country. It is said that when Chen Yonggui was vice premier, he did not believe that the local wheat yield was over a thousand pounds. He sent people to visit him privately and finally confirmed it.

Fourth, because of the heavy use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides over the past 30 years (especially in the last 20 years), cultivated land has generally been "poisoned". However, if Jiang Gaoming resolutely abandoned the "six major hazards"(i.e. fertilizer, pesticide, herbicide, hormone, agricultural film and transgenic), cultivated land will gradually "detoxify" and restore vitality, returning to green and ecology.

In July 2006, Jiang Gaoming, a researcher from Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, rented 40 mu of the worst cultivated land in Jiangjiazhuang Village, Pingyi County, Shandong Province, named "Hongyi Ecological Farm" after completing a series of theoretical demonstrations on green ecological planting technologies, and began his ecological agriculture experiment. He led a group of graduate students, after five years of hard work, finally achieved fruitful results. The cultivated land after "six major pests" was abandoned and the more fertile it was planted through a series of ecological technical measures; the single-season wheat yield of Hongyi Ecological Farm was 480.5 kg/mu, the corn yield was 547.9 kg/mu, and the annual unit grain yield reached 1 ton/mu, which was equivalent to the yield level of local cultivation using chemical fertilizers and pesticides.

At the beginning of 2014, the author visited Sichuan rural areas together with Dr. Xiong Hang who returned to China for investigation, and found that Shuanghe Village in Jianyang had realized comprehensive ecological planting, including ecological planting of all rice varieties and ecological planting of all crop varieties in the whole village. Since 2010, under the leadership of town agricultural technology cadres and village cadres, the village has innovated green ecological planting technology creatively from ecological rice planting with the help of rice ecological planting technology of Provincial Academy of Agricultural Sciences, and promoted ecological planting in an all-round way in the village step by step. In just three years, the green ecological planting in the village covered all crop varieties (including rice, rape, wheat, corn, sweet potato, soybean, small cereals, various vegetables and fruits, etc.) and more than half of the cultivated land in the village. At present, chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides and hormones have been stopped in the cultivated land where ecological planting is implemented in the village, and the pesticide use amount of other cultivated land has been reduced by more than 70%; most villagers 'poultry and livestock also completely refuse hormone feed, and their feeding cycle is about one year. Therefore, agricultural products in the village have become the first choice for urban residents in nearby areas to purchase green ecological food.

During the on-site investigation, what surprised the author was that the ecological rice planting in Shuanghe Village in the first year did not significantly reduce production. The yield measurement in autumn harvest showed that the average yield of hybrid rice planted ecologically was about 450 kg/mu, which was only 10% lower than that of chemical fertilizer and pesticide. By the third year, the yield of hybrid rice planted ecologically (farmers are not allowed to keep their own seeds) has increased to 520~530 kg/mu, and the average yield of conventional rice (farmers can keep their own seeds, but the yield is slightly lower) has also reached 450 kg/mu (in the autumn harvest of 2015, the yield of some conventional rice planted and harvested in advance in this village is as high as 682.1 kg/mu). This shows that green ecological planting has not lost to the yield level of local chemical fertilizers and pesticides.

Thus it can be seen how wrong Mr. Minister's view that traditional agriculture "grain yield can only reach 100 kg per mu" is.

4."Green up" agriculture is "pseudo-green agriculture"

Mr. Minister said,"Now we are pursuing green agriculture, in essence, science and technology as the support, based on modern inputs intensive agriculture." The "modern inputs" as "basic" here are nothing more than synonymous with fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, hormones, antibiotics, agricultural films and genetically modified organisms. Because, without these toxic and harmful things,"modern intensive agriculture" can not play.

For example,"modern intensive agriculture" is mainly manifested as "large-scale planting" and "greenhouse planting" in the planting industry. For the former, chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides are essential, while for the latter, hormones and agricultural films must be added. In addition, in other non-intensive "modern agriculture", these five factors of production have penetrated the country, and even in those remote mountainous areas, farmers are already using herbicides.

In the past two years, the author lectured to trained officials, township cadres and village cadres and asked them,"Some people advocate stopping all fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides and hormones. Do you think this is possible?" In all the training sessions, everyone (including the front-line farmers) said in unison,"This is impossible!" Thus it can be seen that the "four evils" of "modern agriculture" have penetrated into the "bone marrow" of Chinese agriculture.

However, the serious problem lies in the fact that this "four major hazards" pollution, together with the hormone and antibiotic pollution of "modern breeding industry"(which together constitute the "five major hazards" mentioned later, including fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, plant and animal hormones, and antibiotics), has formed a severe situation throughout the country: "The amount of agricultural and rural non-point source pollution is larger than that of urban or industrial point source pollution, and in some places, the agricultural source pollutant index even exceeds the sum of industrial and urban domestic pollution."