The dilemma of the big grain-growing county: "We paste money for other people's meals."

The continuous increase in grain production for many years has not allayed the worries of the major grain-producing counties. A reporter from the "Economic Information Daily" recently visited three major grain-growing counties (cities) in Xiangxiang City, Taojiang County, and Taoyuan County, Hunan Province, and found that at present, the main grain producing areas are generally facing difficulties such as financial tension, decreasing incentive effect of growing grain, and sharp deterioration of the agricultural ecological environment. The responsible person in charge of grain production in major grain-producing counties (cities) said that the current model of over-reliance on "administrative pressure" to promote grain production has become unsustainable, and major grain-producing counties (districts) generally lack endogenous power, and the reason why some places still retain the brand of "major grain-producing counties" is only out of a "sense of honor." If this situation does not change, there may be "big problems" in grain production in the next few years.

"when other people eat, we post money."

Xiangxiang City, Taojiang County, and Taoyuan County are three famous major grain producing counties (cities) in Hunan. When the reporter conducted a survey in these three counties, from the local deputy magistrate in charge of agriculture to various agriculture-related departments, they all poured out bitterness to the reporter: compared with the large amount of manpower and financial resources paid by the main grain producers and the various development opportunities lost, the returns of the major grain-producing counties were too little. This loses momentum for local governments that rely solely on administrative pressure.

Xiangxiang City, a county-level city under the jurisdiction of Xiangtan City, has won the title of National Advanced County in Grain production for five consecutive years. He Fumei, deputy director of the Xiangxiang Municipal Finance Bureau, told reporters: "every year, the central government gives us about 29 million of the incentive funds for transfer payments to our major grain-producing counties, but in 2014, the Xiangxiang finance also invested another 46.44 million of funds directly related to grain production. This year, it has reached 64.14 million, basically an annual growth rate of about 15%. If indirect inputs such as water conservancy are taken into account, Xiangxiang finance at the same level spends more than 100 million yuan on grain production every year. "

"the main grain selling areas have developed a large number of industries, while the main producing counties have lost too many development opportunities because of grabbing grain. It can be summed up in one sentence:'if other people eat, we post money.'" A deputy county magistrate interviewed sighed like this. In order to stabilize the grain area and output, when spring ploughing and "double robbing" come to these major grain-producing counties every year, there will be more cadres in the fields than peasants. The government should not only issue documents urging townships and townships to carry out their tasks, but even some cadres should transfer the land that farmers abandon and do not want to plant to themselves. "if the money invested in grain production is concentrated to set up one or two industrial enterprises, it will be earned back in three years at the most."

"to be honest, we don't want to engage in grain, but we don't want to throw out the sign of 'big grain-producing county'." Li Changhe, deputy magistrate of Taojiang County, said bluntly, "Taojiang is neither a major ecological county nor a major poverty alleviation county, but can only protect the brand of 'major grain-producing counties'. Our idea is to pin our hopes on policy adjustments in the future. if the state's transfer payments or rewards to major grain-producing counties are greatly increased in the future, if we lose this card at that time, it will be too difficult to draw. "

It is understood that in recent years, the phenomenon of farmers abandoning wasteland and "double-cropping rice to one-cropping rice" in Taojiang County is very common, and local governments can only protect area and yield by means of administrative pressure. Liu Boyue, director of the Agricultural Bureau of Taojiang County, said that grain production accounts for 2 points in the performance appraisal of villages and towns in Taojiang County, which accounts for a large proportion. Moreover, the county stipulates that the task of grain production must be 100% guaranteed, and even if it is completed by 99%, it can only be counted as 0. "in addition, the assessment of all agriculture-related projects should be linked to it, and all of them will fail if they fail." Liu Boyue said.

Liu Boyue believes that the adoption of "administrative pressure" is also a last resort. At present, the situation of grain production in Taojiang is grim, in addition to the relatively low efficiency, it is also faced with the following pressure: first, the high-quality cultivated land is constantly decreasing, and the cultivated land replenished in the balance of occupation and compensation is difficult to meet the requirements. Second, cash crops are expanding rapidly. Both sides of the provincial highway from Yiyang City to Taojiang County are almost full of fruits and seedlings. Third, the infrastructure is weak. Last year, 1/4 of the grain fields in the county were inundated by floods.

Sacrifice soil fertility and grain quality in order to increase production

"Grain production depends on big counties, and big counties depend on large households." large grain growers will become the main force in China's grain production in the near future. To enhance the "endogenous driving force" of grain production, we will mainly rely on large grain growers in the future. However, due to the leading idea of "taking quantity as the link" for many years and the pressure of increasing production caused by rising costs, large grain growers have to maintain high yield through excessive use of agricultural inputs.

Many large grain growers told reporters that in recent years, the increase in the cost of growing grain is much higher than that of grain prices, and the income can only be stabilized by increasing per unit yield, although it is well aware that it will have a negative impact on cultivated land fertility and grain quality. but chemical fertilizers and pesticides are still used more and more. Take herbicides as an example, a large grain grower told reporters that although some herbicides imported from abroad are very effective, they are so toxic that they do not dare to keep poultry in the fields at will. In order to maintain the weeding effect, the dose is used more and more.

"(herbicides) can solve the problem with 20 grams per mu in the first year, 50 grams in the second year, 70 grams in the third year, and a new brand in the fourth or fifth year. Sometimes we are afraid of using it too much. " A big grain grower told reporters that some people even adopted some "folk remedies" to shorten the drying time and reduce the loss of grain by spraying highly toxic pesticides on mature rice.

The rice output of Hunan Province accounts for about 14% of the country's total output all the year round, but the per capita cultivated land is only 0.8 mu, and the quality of cultivated land shows a downward trend. At present, the high-yield fields in Hunan Province are about 18 million mu, while the middle-yield fields and low-yield fields are more than 27 million mu and 10 million mu respectively, with a ratio of nearly 2/3. According to the statistics of relevant departments, soil acidification in Hunan Province is obviously accelerated, and the soil pH value of cultivated land decreased from 6.5 in 1980s to 6.0 at present. The plough layer of rice fields has generally become shallow, from 16.5 cm in the 1980s to about 13 cm at present. In recent years, the application of agricultural chemical fertilizers in the province has been maintained at about 8.5 million tons, the use of pesticides has exceeded 120000 tons, and the use of agricultural plastic film has reached 80, 000 tons, while the utilization rates of major crops for nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and other chemical fertilizers are only 30%, 25.9% and 36.7%, respectively, and the utilization rate of pesticides is only about 30%.

An official of the Hunan Provincial Committee of Agriculture said that due to aging infrastructure and poor drainage conditions in many major grain producing counties, a large number of rice fields have adopted simple plank fields or winter soaking to spend the winter, losing the annual regular process of alternating dry and wet soil. the latent and secondary incubation of paddy fields has been intensified year by year, and the area of gleaming paddy fields in the province is close to 8.5 million mu. The serious degradation of cultivated land leads to the continuous decline of the basic soil fertility, and the soil is more "fat, work and draught". Increasing production depends on more use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, agricultural film and water for irrigation. In the long run, the sustainable development of agriculture will not be sustainable.

In March this year, Liu Zonglin, director of the Hunan Provincial Committee of Agriculture, said that from this year on, Hunan Province will further promote soil testing, formula fertilization, pesticide reduction and control, and strengthen the demonstration and promotion of subsidies for low-toxic biological pesticides. At the same time, we will encourage and promote the use of green prevention and control technologies such as bio-organic fertilizers, low-toxic residual pesticides and biological pesticides, so as to achieve "zero growth" in the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides in the province.