Farming given a scientific boost on Chongming
Print Edition
CHONGMING Island, which is striving to become a global model of eco-friendliness, has its roots in agriculture and eyes on sustainable farming.
A prime example is Shen Hong’s farm cooperative, which is working with three Shanghai universities to developing sustainable, environmentally friendly ways of producing high quality food and adding value to farmers’ incomes.
Shen’s Shanghai Chunrun Aquaculture Cooperative is one of five so-called “doctor’s farms, a local government project to modernize centuries of farming traditions with new innovations. Chunrun has five full-time technology engineers and five professors as consultants.
“The name ‘doctor’s farms’ doesn’t refer to having PhDs,” said Gao Yi, director of the Chongming Eco-Agricultural Science and Innovation Center. “Rather, the project is looking for entrepreneurial people with a passion for agriculture, for people who have their own technology experts as backups or work with scientific institutes to commercialize the latest agricultural techniques.”
Chongming accounts for nearly one-third of Shanghai’s farmland, making it an ideal setting for experimentation and the last major outpost for agricultural lands saved from urbanization. Farms in the project are entitled to preferential policies on land use and investment, authorities said. The number of farms in the project is expected to reach more than 20 by the end of 2020.
“Cooperating with scientific institutes provides us access to cutting-edge knowledge and expertise,” Shen said. “We pose questions based on our day-to-day experience, professors develop methods to address our concerns, we test them out, and postgraduates collect data to see if methods work.” He said the work at the farm exceeds what any individual farmer could accomplish his own.
The farm also serves as an experimental site for government research. One project commissioned by the Ministry of Science and Technology is studying how to apply the eco-system of paddies, crayfish and soft-shelled turtles to a larger scale of production.
Local farmers also play a role. About 60 farmers on the island have introduced Shen’s model to their own plots of land.
Shen came to the project with agricultural experience. That was not the case with Huang Guili, 45, who operates another “doctor’s farm” growing citrus.
Before setting up Qianxiaoju Farm, Huang was in real estate development and urban planning. Then he decided he wanted to try to create a farm that integrates agriculture and tourism.
“The land I took over used to be citrus groves, but they had fallen into disrepair,” he said. “I didn’t know anything about orchards, so I went to Japan and Korea to learn from foreign citrus experts. Those places were growing sweet citrus of high quality, so I asked myself, ‘Why not do the same here?’”
His diligence paid off. The first yield from his orchards won first prize in a Shanghai citrus contest in 2014.
Huang’s farm has a cooperative agreement with five local institutes, including the Shanghai Academy of Agricultural Sciences and Shanghai Jiao Tong University. They are studying new techniques for growing citrus.
Both Huang and Shen agree that the focus of agriculture in a heavily populated city like Shanghai should be on quality, not quantity.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
