Inheritance of Ecological Agriculture Tradition and Food Security in China

[editor's note] Ecological agriculture has now become a buzzword. When it comes to it, people always think of Europe and the United States and other developed countries, and the concept of ecological agriculture has become a foreign thing. In fact, China's traditional agriculture is also worthy of the word ecological. This paper points out that as early as a century ago, the American scholar F.H.KING stood on the Western standpoint in his book the Peasant for four Thousand years. The traditional agriculture in eastern countries, including China, is called "sustainable agriculture". Chinese traditional agriculture is circular agriculture and ecological agriculture, while the agriculture characterized by chemical fertilizer and pesticide machinery after the modern industrial revolution in the West is called petroleum agriculture and chemical agriculture. Ecological agriculture is an indispensable connotation in the development of modern agriculture in the next step. China can inherit this tradition and form its own body in the development of modern agriculture.

Chinese traditional agriculture once created the miracle of producing per unit area and supporting the population. As early as in the period of traditional agricultural technology, the population that can be supported by Chinese agriculture with limited land resources has amazed the world. China's population has grown from more than 20 million during the warring States period to 300 million to 400 million before the Opium War. Traditional agriculture has basically met the needs of huge population growth. To this day, we are still proud that China has less than 7% of the world's arable land and feeds the world's 1x4 population. Moreover, for thousands of years, while China's land has maintained an increasing utilization rate and productivity, the land capacity has basically not been exhausted, and a lot of land has become more and more fertile. These cannot but be said to be a miracle in the history of world agriculture.

Today, whether China's agriculture can continue these miracles and ensure national food security, we should not only reasonably develop modern agricultural management mode and modern agricultural technology, but also inherit a reasonable part of traditional agricultural technology through farmers' organizational innovation. As early as a century ago, F.H.KING, an American scholar, called traditional agriculture in eastern countries, including China, as "sustainable agriculture" from the standpoint of Westerners in his book the Peasant for four thousand years. Today, more and more people think that Chinese traditional agriculture is circular agriculture and ecological agriculture, and the agriculture characterized by chemical fertilizer and pesticide machinery after the modern industrial revolution in the West is called petroleum agriculture and chemical agriculture. Ecological agriculture is an indispensable connotation in the development of modern agriculture in the next step. China can inherit this tradition and form its own body in the development of modern agriculture.

Considering the rationality of economics, the development of modern agriculture is generally characterized by the pursuit of economies of scale. However, from the perspective of the comprehensive social and economic benefits needed for sustainable development, the pollution caused by large-scale modern farming and animal husbandry is more serious, especially under the condition of shortage of land resources and diversified food needs of residents in our country. blindly copy the mode of pursuing agricultural scale income by scale production, the result can only be the further strengthening of chemical agriculture. Therefore, we should consider drawing lessons from the tradition of ecological circular agriculture in China to develop appropriate-scale agricultural production and promote the sustainable development of agriculture.

1. In terms of scientific arrangement and technological innovation of the tradition of ecological agriculture, due to the lack of systematic summary, improvement and innovation, under the condition of the increasing shortage of land and other production resources, it is not possible to create both economic and ecological benefits. There are many traditional agricultural production technologies that need to use modern science to elucidate its mechanism, improve its operation, and make it standardized and accurate, so as to facilitate its popularization on a larger scale.

For example, the production mode of raising ducks in rice fields created on the basis of "driving out ducks and controlling locusts" is originally a very valuable agricultural ecological technology, but it has always been in a state of survival on its own and has not been summed up and popularized as it should be. on the contrary, the ecological technology of "co-cultivation of rice and duck" was introduced from abroad. For another example, although Chinese traditional farm manure technology embodies the concept of recycling economy of waste resources, due to the backward means of accumulation system, it is very easy to form organic fertilizer with low nutrients, large volume, low harmless degree and high pollution. low labor efficiency, high intensity and other disadvantages, farmers compare all aspects of costs, naturally tend to use chemical fertilizer.

2. Inheriting the technological tradition of ecological agriculture through the development of moderate scale operation of farmers and the organization of farmers, the reason why China has formed the technological tradition of ecological agriculture is related to the endowment of resources and environment with large population and little land. it is also related to farmers' farming for generations, family inheritance and the spread of agronomists. If our country does not give up family management in agricultural production, it can be imagined that the tradition of ecological agriculture in China can still be further inherited and play an inestimable role in the form of residence and land possession of the village community.

Eco-agricultural technology is very dependent on specific ecosystems, it is very specific and practical, which requires farmers who cultivate a piece of land to be able to farm for a long time, and it is best to transfer agricultural technology between families to reduce the cost of learning. Farmers must have an appropriate scale of land management, also need to become professional farmers, and live in rural areas for a long time, so that they can have the operation ability and learning innovation ability of eco-agricultural technology.

At the same time, the specific ecosystem that the ecological planting of a single household depends on is within a certain regional scope. In order to maintain the development of ecological agriculture, there must be certain plans for soil transformation, water conservancy security, seed selection and field management in specific areas. This requires that neighboring farmers must belong to an organized group. No matter whether this group is a regional cooperative or a collective economic organization. In other words, only a certain degree of peasant organization can ensure the inheritance of eco-agricultural tradition.

In order to develop ecological agriculture, farmers must also develop their market competitiveness with similar agricultural products with low production costs abroad. Under the condition of the opening of the international agricultural market, the state should give priority to ensuring the supply of domestic ecological grain varieties for its own residents, and correspondingly impose certain restrictions on the import of foreign food. it is also necessary to give a certain price subsidy to domestic ecological grain.