Through analyzing the plant production and animal production of grassland in China and comparing the grassland productivity at home and abroad, the author finds that, in the past over 30 years, the grass production of grassland declined slightly in some regions of China. Among the global animal products, 40.08% came from the world's grassland and 67.35% was from middle income countries. 24.1% of the global beef production and 31.9% of the global mutton production were supported by grassland. The grazing capacity of the grassland of low income countries was 87.4% higher than that of high income countries and 66.4% higher than that of middle income countries. However, their output of animal products respectively accounts for 37.3% and 71.9% of that of high and middle income countries. With appropriate grazing utilization, the productivity of grassland in China can reach 6.35×109 APU. The meat production from animal grazing grassland can reach 2.959×106 t, accounting for 3.5% of the national meat production and 27.4% of the national beef and mutton production. After the transformation of modernization of grassland animal husbandry, China's grassland productivity will be close to that of high income countries with a potential increase of about 50%–200%.
Food security is not only an economic issue, but also an important social issue. To ensure national food security, China has to study and evaluate correctly changes in supply and demand in the future; carry out the three development requirements of Great Food View, full industry chain and new greening; draw the alerting line for food security standards and resource utilization; differentiate importing categories and the order of priority; set clear development goals and enhance basic support and technical support. Based on the strategic concept of sustainable development of food security in the future, the paper proposes policy suggestions including setting the core strategy of being basically self-sufficient in grain, speeding up the implementation of the major project of building 1 billion mu of high standard farmlands, carrying out creative operation modes and cultivating the new type of agricultural business entities, improving laws and regulations, promoting the development process of modern agriculture, etc.
As the largest terrestrial ecosystem in China, grassland plays a strategic role in ensuring the ecological and food security and carrying forward the grassland culture of China. This paper analyzes the current situation, development trend and major influence factors of the resources, ecological functions and productivity of the grassland in China and discusses the current and future challenges, opportunities and potential of China's grassland ecological security and productivity as well as the development of grassland husbandry. Based on the analysis, the author further makes suggestions on the strategic goals and focuses, key measures and major policies for the ecological and food security of China's grassland.
During the period of the 13th Five-Year Plan and even in a long period in the future, the demand for husbandry products in China will show a rigid increase. But Chinese husbandry is currently faced with unfavorable situations, such as the serious resources shortage, the increasing environmental constraints, and the intense international competitions that exacerbate their impact on domestic husbandry. Based on the above facts, Chinese husbandry should take the sustainable development strategy for the future. This paper analyzes the development status of Chinese husbandry and challenges for its sustainable development and makes a basic judgment on the sustainable development of Chinese husbandry. Aiming at the 13th Five-Year Plan, the paper develops the strategic objectives, strategic priorities and basic principles that will benefit the sustainable development of Chinese husbandry. Furthermore, in order to provide theoretical support for accelerating the transformation of Chinese husbandry development mode, and realizing the husbandry modernization, it also puts forward some important suggestions on "further making clear the strategic dominance of husbandry in modern agriculture development" and "reasonable use of the international market to protect domestic food security" and "quickly launching and implementing a batch of key husbandry science and technology R&D programs".
Food security is important for a country’s prosperity and stability and it is also an important safeguard of steady economy and social development. The study focuses on sustainable development and national food security. Based on the development status of the Chinese food industry, and the problems, development trends, opportunities and challenges of food security, this paper proposes the strategic objectives, strategic ideas, key safeguard measures and policy recommendations to ensure future national food security.
The paper analyzes the constraint factors and main problems of Chinese horticultural industry. The horticultural industry is a major agricultural pillar industry in China which is highly market-oriented. It is important for national economy and the people's livelihood and can guarantee urban and rural residents' nutrition health and increase peaeants' income. The study proposes that the government should carry out five strategies, i.e., layout optimization, deepening market-oriented development, going out, improving quality and effectiveness and extending industrial chain, to ensure the sustainable development of Chinese horticultural industry.
The fact that edible oil materials have become the primary agricultural products in China with the largest dependency on international market is the main reason for the trade deficit of international agricultural products. The large import of vegetable oil materials has a big effect on national grain and food security, resident consumption and even national economy. On account of the new grain security strategy, the growth space of our national edible oil materials is limited, the production potential is great but hard to become real production, and the future consumption will increase. Under the new normal of the large import of vegetable oil materials, global edible oil production potential is great, China has the ability to obtain a stable supply of edible oil materials from the international market, and the external environment of edible oil material supply security is complicated. According to the new domestic conditions and international situation, the paper offers the following new security strategies for edible oil: maintaining capacity, keeping benchmark, importing initiatively and healthy consumption.
Agricultural products processing is the process of manufacturing agricultural products into finished and semi-finished products. Food industry is the essential part of agricultural products processing. The overall technic level and the degree of modernization of food industry are important indicators of economic and social development as well as the level of civilization of a nationality, a country or a region. The strategic background, opportunities and challenges for development as well as the problems faced by Chinese food industry are analyzed in this paper and the development strategy of food industry in China is also proposed.
Food security is based on the agricultural resources and environment. At present, China's agricultural resources and environment have been faced with three problems. First, due to the shrinking of sown areas and the quality reduction and spatial pattern changes of cultivated land, China's cultivated land resource cannot provide sustainable support for its food production. Second, the contradiction between "the increasing grain demand and the decreasing water resource" has become obvious and the "north-to-south grain transfer" has been increasingly difficult. Third, the agricultural eco-environment has deteriorated and the service function of the agricultural ecosystem cannot be brought into full play. To solve these problems, we should implement the efficient modern ecological agriculture strategy, rebalancing strategy in the grain production area and the trade substitution strategy. Based on these strategies, relevant policy suggestions are also put forward.
It has become an urgent task in China to develop modern agricultural sciences and technologies for supporting food security since the establishment of the national food policy. Based on the clarification of the concept of food security and distinguishing human being food from animal feed, the future supply potential and deficit of agricultural products from the existed cultivated and non-cultivated land resources were estimated. It was indicated that the arable land should be used mainly for human being cereal production while the animal feed could be produced from some cultivated land, grassland and sea or ocean area. Then the major scientific and technological problems to be resolved for securing the food production in China were put forward, including the science and technology in arable land expansion, improvement and replacement, those in efficient sustainable utilization of the cultivated land and those in coping with the abiotic stresses, as well as the corresponding top-level blue print design of the future research essentials. It was noticed that the interactive development strategy between the advanced agricultural science and technology innovation and the conventional industry technology improvement should be emphasized as a priority. Furthermore, the strategy and policy for the reform of the organization system and management mechanism in the government management of science and technology were suggested, including the establishment of permanent center for sustainable food production monitoring and decision making, the differential responsibilities for ministry of agriculture and ministry of science and technology, the top level blue print design of the science and technology development in agriculture, the science and technology innovation recognized after benefiting the agro-production, and so for.
Based on the research of the grassland carbon sink in China and the remote sensing data from 1982 to 2011, the total carbon storage of the grassland ecosystem in China is about 31.2 PgC, 96 % of which are stored in the soil. The vegetation carbon density of grassland is highly spatially heterogeneous due to various types of grassland and vast distribution in China. The largest grassland vegetation carbon sink in China is located in Inner Mongolia, followed by Tibet and Qinghai, while that of the six main pastoral areas accounts for 71 % of the national grassland vegetation carbon sink. However, 90 % of the natural grassland in China has degraded more or less. Effective managements and implementation of major ecological construction projects have played an important role in the recovery of grassland carbon storage, which indicates that the grassland in China has great potential for carbon sequestration.
Developing forage/livestock farming in cropping areas can help to enhance the integration, in both spatial and temporal dimensions, of forages into food and/or cash crop systems and thus to improve the use efficiency of agricultural resources. Currently the advantages of forages in cropping areas have not been well exploited mainly because of the traditional thinking of agricultural production and the government policies that favour food crops. In this article, the current status and future potential of forage industry development on croplands are analyzed and relevant policy recommendations are proposed.
China is a big agricultural country. The research on the carbon sink function of crop production in China’s typical agricultural areas plays an important role in estimating the regional carbon budget and making management policies to tackle climate changing issue. The production of staple crops can be generally reflected by their carbon sinks. The carbon sinks of different crops in the same area differ greatly, and the carbon sink of the same crop also differs in different areas. The national annual reserve of soil organic carbon can be generally embodied in its carbon sink as well. The annual reserves of soil organic carbon in different areas range between –2.07 TgC·y–1 and 19.95 TgC·y–1.
The global warming caused by heavy emissions of greenhouse gases has posed a great threat to the existence and development of mankind. The carbon sink function of crops has an important regulating effect on climate changes. Actually the production of crops can be seen as the carbon source as well as the carbon sink. In this article, the authors gather and analyze the relevant carbon emission parameters of the staple crop production system in China, estimate the carbon sink effect of farmland and its dynamic change feature and quantitatively evaluate the carbon input and output of these crop production systems. In this way, the paper provides a basis for making the low-carbon agriculture planning and policies and proposes the approach to optimizing the carbon sink structure of the farmland in China.
China is the largest vegetable producer and consumer in the world. Vegetable seed industry is an important material basis for modern vegetable industry development and annual balanced vegetable supply. The sustainable development of the vegetable seed industry is promoted by technical innovation. The Chinese vegetable seed industry has entered into a critical period for development. This paper analyzes the present situation of the vegetable seed industry and seed technology in China, compares it with that in foreign countries, and proposes the development strategies, goals, tasks, safeguard measures and policy recommendations of vegetable seed industry of China according to major problems confronted.
The development of large scale, mechanization, informationization, intelligence and social services for cotton production is an inevitable choice to solve the labor shortage in cotton production, reduce the cost of cotton production, realize cotton industry modernization and consolidate the cotton industry dominance. The paper introduces the basic situation of cotton cultivation, the development situation and restricting factors of large scale, mechanization, informationization, intelligence and social services for cotton production in China, and puts forwards suggestions for easy cotton planting.
This Issue
Jan 2016, Volume 18 Issue 1
On the cover
To promote agricultural modernization and develop modern agriculture is not only the basis of ensuring food security, but also the cornerstone of building ecological security. For this reason, the Chinese Academy of Engineering has organized the Major Consulting Research. Focusing on the central task of ensuring food safety, it has systematically studied the sustainable development of planting industry, forestry, animal husbandry, fishery, and achieved a number of valuable research results.