CAS technological innovation boosting farm output
Print Edition
Xu Jingyu had been growing corn and wheat for a dozen years, but never imagined his saline-alkali soil could produce 500 kilograms of grain per mu (about 0.07 hectare).
“Until last year, the average wheat production was only 200 to 300kg per mu,” said the 64-year-old, who lives in Musanba Village in Nanpi County, north China’s Hebei Province, where lands have been less productive due to the soil salinity.
Xu said that last year he began to grow wheat seeds, called “Xiao Yan 81,” provided by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and adopted farming techniques suggested by the institution.
The land yield of wheat in Musanba village this year has already reached more than 450kg per mu, and corn yields have reached about 600kg per mu, according to Xu.
China accounts for a fifth of the world’s population, but with less than 9 percent of its land arable, its leaders have aimed to boost agriculture technology to ensure food supply.
In July, President Xi Jinping said during a tour of rural areas in central Hubei Province that the country’s food security issue could only be solved from within, indicating that we should not rely on imports for our food supply.
Analysts say recent moves, such as the initiatives by the CAS in the Bohai Bay Rim area, which includes Musanba Village, reflect China’s determination to tackle the problem by promoting agriculture innovation.
“China now has 1.8 billion mu of arable land. The key to solving China’s food security problem is not to increase arable land, but to boost agriculture innovation to increase food output,” said Liu Xiaojing, a researcher at the CAS’ Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology.
According to CAS statistics, China has more than 40 million mu of medium- and low-yield fields, and 10 million mu of saline soils in four provincial-level divisions, including Hebei, Shandong, Liaoning, and Tianjin in the Bohai Bay Rim area.
If technology can overcome problems such as barren soil and the lack of freshwater resources, the potential of these lands could be huge, said Liu.
Researchers estimate that by 2020, the Bohai Bay Rim will have the potential to hike crop output by 5 billion kg per year.
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