Ma Youxiang: understanding Grass and attaching importance to Grass Development

Grass plays an important role in the development of agricultural and rural economy in China, especially in the development of herbivorous animal husbandry, and will continue to play a more important role.

Grass is the basis of the development of modern herbivorous animal husbandry. Grass is the basic means of production of herbivorous animal husbandry and the food rations of herbivorous livestock. Without grass, there would be no herbivorous animal husbandry, and without modern grass industry, there would be no modern herbivorous animal husbandry. In the United States, a powerful country in modern animal husbandry, the planting area of forage has always been maintained at about 400 million mu, ranking as one of the four major crops for a long time; hay output has been maintained at an average annual output of about 140 million tons, creating an output value of nearly 50 billion US dollars. The industrial chain of scientific research, promotion, processing, machinery, storage and transportation and trade related to grass is complete, and the strength of grass industry is strong.

Grass is a major deficiency in the development of animal husbandry in China. In recent years, the market demand of cattle and sheep products in China is strong, and the price remains strong, but there is a serious shortage of forage grass. Last year, the output of commercial grass in China was 8.2963 million tons. Based on the average daily forage consumption of 1.8kg per sheep unit and the fattening period of 100d, it was estimated that the feeding amount supported was less than 50 million sheep units, less than 1 / 10 of the total amount of feed. Feeding alfalfa is an effective measure to improve milk yield and milk quality of dairy cows, but the production of alfalfa in China is insufficient, nearly one million tons were imported last year, and the price is much higher than that of grain and domestic forage grass.

It is recommended that Xingcao has a bright future. China's agriculture has had a bumper harvest for many years, and food rations have been basically solved stably, making it possible to expand forage planting. With the improvement of the level of large-scale breeding, the demand for forage grass continues to be strong, good grass to raise good livestock, good livestock to produce good milk (meat) has become the consensus of the industry. With the change of corn price, the recommended comparative benefit advantage gradually appears. The techniques of cultivation, harvest and silage packaging related to grass have been relatively mature, and the supporting conditions of equipment are basically available. There have been many successful explorations in various places and accumulated successful experience in recommending raising livestock and setting up grass. It can be said that everything is ready to recommend Xingcao.

Ideas must come first. In order to recommend and develop grass industry, the urgent task is to change the concept and re-recognize the status and function of grass. It is necessary to profoundly understand and promptly implement the requirements of "supporting forage planting and promoting the coordinated development of the ternary planting structure of grain, cash crops, and forage" put in a more prominent position in the "transformation mode and structure adjustment" of agriculture, established that recommendation is to grow grain (feed grain), and recommendation is the concept of growing meat and milk, as much as attaching importance to grain, and recommending as much as growing grain. It is necessary to be willing to recommend fertile land, be willing to invest, and manage intensively in order to really turn grass into a large industry.

(the writer is the director of the Animal Husbandry Department of the Ministry of Agriculture and the director of the grassland Supervision Center.)