Temperament: Protecting Supply of Agricultural Products Must Accelerate Agricultural Technological Innovation

The annual Central Rural Work Conference was opened on December 27th. Premier Wen Jiabao said at the same day that more attention should be paid to safeguarding farmers’ rights in terms of land, property, employment, social security and public services, and paying more attention to the expansion of villagers’ autonomy. Scope, improve the township governance system that is consistent with the continuous improvement of farmers' awareness of political participation. Sources said that the meeting reviewed and discussed the “No. 1 Document” of the Central Government next year. After the deliberation and discussion, the documents will be issued in final form to all relevant departments and localities, and local and various departments will successively implement the implementation in accordance with the actual situation. No. 1 document method.

According to the source, it was different from the document No. 1 of last year focusing on irrigation and water conservancy construction. This year's No. 1 document will focus on agricultural science and technology innovation, and strive to solve some outstanding problems in the current agricultural science and technology system from the institutional mechanism and change agricultural growth. The situation is too extensive, so that agricultural production is not at the expense of high energy consumption, high pollution and unsustainable.

In addition, relevant departments will ensure the investment of agricultural science and technology promotion next year through funds, and through comparative screening, they will focus on supporting a number of leading scientific research institutions, agricultural science and technology enterprises, and key regions, giving preferential treatment from the capital and policy side.

Han Changfu, Minister of Agriculture, said at a seminar held in the Ministry of Agriculture in November that agricultural production increased by relying on policies, building infrastructure and relying on science and technology.

Extensive grain production is unsustainable. In fact, since the second half of this year, agricultural science and technology has entered the vision of relevant people and departments.

According to informed sources, in the second half of this year, Chen Xiwen, deputy leader and head of the office of the Central Rural Work Leading Group, went to Anhui, Jiangsu and other large agricultural provinces to investigate the issue of agricultural science and technology reform and development. The key research objects of Chen are provincial and municipal agricultural scientific research departments, county and township grassroots agricultural technology promotion stations, and agricultural industrialization leading enterprises. Chen Xiwen is the main drafter of the Central Document No. 1 over the years.

At the end of November this year, Li Jiayang, a well-known breeding expert and vice president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, was transferred to the position of Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Director of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences. People close to the Ministry of Agriculture said that this move can be seen some clues.

Just on the 5th of this month, Li Jiayang, who was recently employed, held a report on the agricultural situation at the Academy of Agricultural Sciences. Chen Xiwen made a report at the meeting. The focus of the report was on accelerating the innovation of agricultural science and technology, and promoting the transformation and application of agricultural scientific and technological achievements. Modern agriculture construction.

Zheng Fengtian, deputy dean of the Renmin University of China’s Renmin University of China, said that in fact, relevant ministries and commissions such as the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Science and Technology involving agricultural science and technology have already done their own planning and work in this area. For example, the Ministry of Agriculture has a project on agricultural technology to the countryside. The Ministry of Science and Technology has a Spark program for agricultural science and technology, but the ministries are not unified, the scale of the project is small, and it is relatively messy. This time the No. 1 document will make a clear division of labor and complete system planning.

On December 26, the Ministry of Agriculture issued the “Twelfth Five-Year Plan” for the development of agricultural science and technology, planning the development of new varieties of animal and plant plants, research on agricultural production mechanization technology, prevention and control of major animal diseases, research on plant pest control technologies, and agricultural products (11.60, -0.16, -1.36%) Research on safety production and quality control technologies, post-production processing of agricultural products and research on deep processing technologies, and construction of basic conditions for agricultural science and technology, and strive to contribute more than 55% to the progress of agricultural science and technology. The current rate is About 35%.

This year, China’s total grain output has reached 114.24 billion jins, which is a rare eight consecutive increase in history. However, behind the increase in production, there have also been a lot of problems: the excessive use of water resources has led to the emergence of large-area funnels, agrochemical fertilizers, and pesticides. Caused a large area of ​​non-point source pollution.

Zhang Xiaoshan, a member of the Academy of Social Sciences and the Institute of Agricultural Research, said that the extensive mode of operation of agricultural production must be changed to rely on science and technology, take the road of high efficiency, energy conservation and modern agriculture. Otherwise, the increase in grain production will not be sustainable.

The fragile agricultural technology promotion system Li Guoxiang, a researcher at the Institute of Social Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that at present, the agricultural technology promotion system in rural areas has reached the point where the network is broken, disconnected, and scattered. It has basically been used in name only and some agricultural stations have become sold. The seeds and pesticides shop simply cannot play the role of agricultural technology promotion.

However, with the continuous increase in the scale of agricultural production and intensification, new large-scale breeders, farmers' specialized cooperatives, and agricultural enterprises have gradually become the new mainstay of agricultural production and management, which has generated huge demand for technical services in key production processes.

In the middle of this, there is a huge contradiction between supply and demand.

Li Guoxiang does not support the restoration of the agricultural technology station system under the traditional administrative system. “First of all, we should divide the public welfare nature and the business nature. Some projects are public welfare, they must be promoted and implemented within the agricultural technology stations set up by the government; while some agricultural technology projects with business operations, the combination of production, education and research should be adopted. According to the actual needs of agricultural enterprises and the agricultural workers in these enterprises, they seek support from related agricultural research institutions. Of course, government agencies should play a role in helping each other, but they should not play a leading role."

This of course requires the government to invest a lot of money.

However, Li Guoxiang thinks that money is certainly a good thing, but how to make good use of money is more critical. “Now money is allocated to those scientific research institutions. The result is a large number of papers, which can actually translate into very little agricultural production. This, of course, is related to the current technology evaluation system."

Zheng Fengtian also believes that the existing problems in science and technology evaluation are not rational, scientific and technical evaluation standards are not scientific enough, and the subject of scientific and technological evaluation needs to be adjusted has become an important obstacle to restricting the independent innovation of agricultural science and technology in China.

Seed industry will be greatly developed The above-mentioned source said that the biggest concern of the No. 1 document and the capital market next year will be the seed industry, which will also be the lifeblood of future Chinese agriculture.

In fact, in April this year, the State Council issued the “State Council’s Opinions on Accelerating the Development of Modern Crop Seed Industry”, which put the seed industry at a strategic height that relates to the development of modern agriculture. The Ministry of Agriculture has been discussing and planning to implement this document. The specific opinions and will strive to be introduced during the year.

Although China's seed industry already has 10 listed companies, and there are more than 8,700 seed companies in the country, after China's accession to the WTO, its impact on the international seed industry giants is very large.

Zheng Fengtian said that the corn seed market in the Northeast has been almost occupied by the United States’s Yuyu 355. Huang Dazhao, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences and a deputy director of the National Committee on Genetically Modified Organisms Safety, said that China's seed industry is characterized by smallness, weakness, and poor scientific research capabilities. Many varieties are basically foreign technologies and they will need one or two core research capabilities in the future. Big companies can compete with foreign countries.

The Ministry of Agriculture has also stated in its newly released science and technology plan that it is necessary to encourage large-scale, strong-strength, and well-developed seed companies that integrate “breeding, breeding, pushing, and pushing”, integrate existing breeding power and resources, and make full use of the results of public welfare research. Market-oriented and industrialized breeding models to develop variety research and development.

However, Zheng Fengtian said that agricultural science and technology innovation is not a paper, a few money on the line, which involves the system and a country's overall creativity and R & D capabilities, not seeing efficacy overnight.