Exploring the "New Normal" of Agricultural Development from the "New Picture" of Spring Farming

Grain Rain carries the flag of wheat, and the Beginning of Summer carries the flag of wheat.

Now that Grain Rain has passed, it is a busy time for spring planting and spring management. The permafrost in the northeast has melted, and farmers are beginning to sow new hopes; wheat seedlings in the North China Plain are lush and are beginning to jointing and heading; and the rice and rape fields in the south and southwest of the Yangtze River are full of vitality.

Agriculture is stable and the world is safe. A few days ago, Xinhua News Agency multi-channel reporters came to the vast fields to look for new changes and new weather in agricultural production in the spring, and to explore new directions for ensuring food security and changing the mode of agricultural development.

From drones to the Internet of things, new technologies paint a new picture of spring ploughing

On the 21st, Sheyang County, Jiangsu Province, is located in the Huang-Huai-Hai Plain. Over a green wheat field, a two-meter-long drone rose into the air, flying smoothly like a large dragonfly with a light posture. The young "flight control hand" Xu Jian controls it on the ground. As the plane passed by, a layer of mist fell gently, which was for the prevention and control of wheat scab.

"despite the fact that this guy is small, he can carry 10 kilograms of pesticides at a time, and can spray up to 400 mu a day, which is worth 40 workers." Xu Guangjun, chairman of Zhuocheng Plant Protection Professional Cooperative in Sheyang County, said that the cooperative has a total of six unmanned plant protection machines, which has greatly improved the efficiency of pest control.

As a new type of farmland spraying "artifact", drones are very popular among farmers as soon as they appear. In Henan, a major agricultural province, driven by pilot agricultural machinery subsidies, the number of aircraft in the province has reached more than 300 in just two or three years.

On this day, in Hebi City, Henan Province, thousands of miles away, 58-year-old farmer Tang Quanhe was drawing up the next field management plan based on the recent late spring cold and wheat growth. With the "satellite-land double base system", he can know when to apply fertilizer, when to apply medicine, and when to prevent dry hot wind.

Lao Tang said: "now farming has' clairvoyance 'and' downwind ears', wheat is a kind of seedlings, the proportion of green leaves per unit area is higher, and the seedling condition is better."

Tang Quanhe is the first farmer in the country to use the "satellite-land double base system" to grow grain. He grows enough grain every year to feed 100000 people for a year.

In the northeast, where spring sowing is about to begin, the management of rice seedlings in Heilongjiang, the "big granary", is a critical period, and corn is about to be sown. At the Yongsheng Modern Agricultural Machinery Cooperative in Heihe City, 41 large-scale agricultural machinery, such as land dumpers and planters, have been overhauled. Yang Yonghe, chairman of the board, said that the cooperative has operated a total of 30,000 mu of land, and corn seeds and chemical fertilizers have been bought, and the land has been ploughed since May Day. After the earth is turned over, it will be fully planted in less than half a month.

As the saying goes, rice seedlings are good for half a year. Nowadays, the widespread application of a series of new techniques for centralized raising of rice seedlings has laid a good foundation for a good harvest. In a seedling raising shed in Suibin Farm in Heilongjiang Province, the ground seems to be covered with a green carpet. Li Yanfen, a grower, is checking the growth of the seedlings and holding a sprinkler from time to time to replenish water for the seedlings. "now there are all standardized seedling raising greenhouses, and the seedlings are all good and strong." Li Yanfen said.

The new technology of "Internet of things agriculture" is even used in raising rice seedlings. In the control room of the intelligent seedling raising greenhouse in the first management area of Heilongjiang 859 Farm, the staff clicked the mouse, and the relevant data in the shed several kilometers away were displayed on the computer screen in real time, forming a dynamic graph. If you want irrigation and ventilation, just click the mouse. Li Shuquan, a big grain grower, took out his mobile phone and turned on the monitoring system of the seedling shed, and the temperature, humidity, air pressure and other data synchronized with the computer were immediately presented.

"the great changes in agricultural production, like the changes in the whole country and the changes of the times, are exclamatory." Xu Chengzhi, director of the agricultural technology station in Chihe Town, Dingyuan County, Anhui Province, said: "more than 20 years ago, pulling ploughed farmland depended on manpower and animal power; at the initial stage of dividing the fields to households, it was not bad for rice to produce more than 600 jin per mu. Now the use of new technology, up to 1200 jin. "

The answer to "who will feed the Chinese people" is becoming clear that the new grain growers have become the main force.

In 2014, China's grain production has achieved "eleven consecutive growth", but at present, the variety and quantity of grain imports are increasing, and the pattern of supply and demand of staple grain has changed from "overall balance and surplus in bumper years" to "tight balance". With rising production costs and increasing shortage of arable land and other resources, can China continue to solve the problem of feeding more than 1.3 billion people?

The reporter interviewed and saw that in addition to the accelerated application of new agricultural technologies, the rapid improvement of the level of farming mechanization, the general rise of large grain growers and professional cooperatives, we are also working hard for the goal of "ensuring that the rice bowls of the Chinese people are firmly in their own hands."

Zhu Mengzhou, director of the Department of Agriculture of Henan Province, said that Henan winter wheat is gradually entering the heading and flowering stage from south to north, which is an important stage of yield formation, and is also a key period for the prevention and control of major diseases and insect pests at the heading stage, such as scab and stripe rust.

Winter wheat is not only the main body of summer grain, but also the first crop of grain harvested by Chinese farmers every year. In the grain production structure of our country, although the output of summer grain only accounts for 1x4 of the whole year, it is very important, which is related to whether the grain production can be carried out as scheduled. After the summer grain, the autumn grain, mainly rice and corn, determines the overall situation of the whole year's grain harvest.

Henan is the largest province in winter wheat output, and winter wheat is a major crop with the highest utilization rate of agricultural machinery. Mechanized farming and harvesting have become common in this province. According to Zhang Kailun, director of the Henan Agricultural Machinery Bureau, the number of tractors in the province has increased from 3.39 million to 3.877 million in the past five years, an increase of 14.4 percent, with an increase of 130 percent for large and medium-sized tractors.

With the acceleration of urbanization and the outflow of agricultural population, the aging of rural areas and the concurrently industrialization of agriculture have once aroused the concern of "who will farm?" Zhang Kailun believes that the number of migrant workers in Henan Province reaches 20 million all the year round, and grain production can still be increased year after year, which is closely related to the reduction of agricultural labor force due to the development of mechanization.

According to the statistics of the Ministry of Agriculture, the comprehensive mechanization level of crop cultivation and harvest in China exceeded 61 percent last year, and China's agricultural production has shifted from human and animal power to a new historical stage dominated by mechanization. What is particularly gratifying is that the proportion of the three major food crops is more than 75%, and wheat production has basically achieved full mechanization.

With the vigorous rise of various professional cooperatives that grow grain and provide services such as fertilization and spraying, the efficiency of land output has been improved, and it has also made a great contribution to the increase of grain yield per unit area.

In Zhenghe Village, Changfa Town, Jiamusi City, Heilongjiang Province, many courtyards are closed, and most of the reporters see the figure of the elderly. Wang Fengcai, director of the village committee, said that more than 1330 people in the village went to work in the city, accounting for more than 80 percent of the strong labor force. Most of the people who stay in the countryside are over 60 years old, women and children around 50 years old. "all the 8700 mu of arable land in the village is cultivated by a cooperative, and not a single mu of land is abandoned." Wang Fengcai said.

According to the statistics of the Ministry of Agriculture, there are 3.17 million large rural households, 870000 family farms and 1.24 million farmers' cooperatives, with an average family farm size of 200mu. These new operators have become the main force of agricultural production in the new period.

Old pressure and new challenges go hand in hand, and China's agriculture breaks through in reform and innovation.

Although there is new hope in the field, there are hidden worries because of some new and old problems.

Large grain growers generally reflect "poor money". Lian Jinsheng, a big grain grower in Zhaoguang Town, Bei'an City, Heilongjiang Province, said that although there are loans for large grain growers, "there are too many things, and it takes too much effort to ask for this and that information." He hopes to have credit products that can make loans with transfer contracts, lower bank interest rates and less land costs.

Some grain-growing "small households" are faced with the dilemma of abandoned land. In Lutai Town, Huaiyang County in eastern Henan Province, Zheng Ruihai, a farmer with nothing to do, was anxious to see his neighbors busy weeding and medicine. Last year, the 12 acres of contracted land owned by his three brothers were subcontracted to a company to grow sorghum at once. In the autumn, however, the company failed to pay the rent as promised, and the farmland was abandoned.

Over the past three years, the area of contracted land flowing into enterprises has grown at an average annual rate of more than 20%. By the end of 2014, the area of contracted land flowing into enterprises had reached 38.825 million mu, accounting for about 10% of the total area of contracted land transferred by farmers in the country. Zhu Jinfang, deputy director of the Agricultural economy Department of the Henan Provincial Agriculture Department, believes that land transfer has made grain production more intensive and large-scale, but similar industrial and commercial capital going to the countryside to "horse enclosure" also has blind investment and conceptualized hype, and risks and hidden dangers cannot be ignored.

The pressure and risk from the market is a challenge to the enthusiasm of all food producers. From September last year to February this year, prices in the domestic grain market declined, and the prices of many major agricultural products fell sharply. The No. 1 document of the CPC Central Committee this year pointed out that how to continue to strengthen the dominant position of agriculture and promote the continuous increase of farmers' income in the context of slowing economic growth is a major issue that must be solved.

Although the central government's income growth rate has declined, its investment in agriculture, rural areas and farmers has increased this year. At the beginning of this month, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Agriculture jointly issued a circular to allocate 143.4 billion yuan for this year's comprehensive subsidies for agricultural materials, direct subsidies for grain farmers, and subsidies for improved varieties of crops. At the same time, all localities are required to adopt effective ways such as agricultural credit guarantee, discount, direct cash subsidy and major agricultural technology extension subsidies to support new operators to solve the problem of difficult and expensive financing in grain moderate scale operation.

With regard to land transfer, the Ministry of Agriculture and other four departments issued the "opinions on strengthening the Supervision and risk Prevention of Industrial and Commercial Capital Leasing of farmland" on the 24th, focusing on protecting the rights and interests of farmers.

In order to enable more people to farm better, new methods are being tried everywhere.

"my family has 6 mu of contracted farmland. In the past, we had to tidy up the seedling ponds after the Spring Festival, but now the government-supported nursery and seedling supply bases provide 'through-train' services. As long as we look at the seedlings and release water, the technology is more in place and the harvest is guaranteed." Sheyang County Haihe Town farmer Wang Jiamin said.

Locally explore a large-scale planting model called "joint farming", so that the government and the market "two hands" to form a virtuous circle, through mechanism adjustment to promote social service capacity, so that more and more retail investors are more willing to farm and farm with ease.

Due to the excessive use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, the problems such as soil consolidation and soil fertility decline have become increasingly prominent. How to realize the sustainable use of cultivated land is worrying. As Liu Junli, a big grain grower in Fujin City, Heilongjiang Province, said, "the old road of increasing production driven by fertilizer is difficult to sustain, and the land will become more and more greedy."

The reporter saw that the technology of "soil testing and formula fertilization" is being popularized in the black soil of Northeast China. By testing the content of trace elements in the soil, what is missing and what is missing, blind fertilization is avoided.

This year is not only a key year for comprehensively deepening reform, but also an important year for the transformation of agricultural restructuring. Behind the endless spring ploughing, there are profound changes in agricultural production, and the superposition resonance of new technologies, new farmers and new mechanisms is opening up the future of China's agriculture.