Zhang Zhongfa, Zu Guobu and Li Yi

New revolution of agricultural science and technology is a massive historic renovation that involves extensive contents in a historical period. Such a renovation includes major technological breakthrough that will bring along the development of other industries, building of new technology system, industrial upgrading and birth of new industries. It will spur the agricultural development, fundamentally change the means of farm production and eventually lead to the overall change of rural economy and society. New revolution of agricultural technology will definitely change the urban-rural dualistic structure and pattern of resource distribution, reorganize scientific and educational resources, promote the development of both science and education and boost the rejuvenation of agriculture and rural economy.

This revolution concerns lots of work. We propose four basic tasks as a result of our research.

I. Promoting scientific and technological renovation and prioritizing the major applicable technologies and high-tech so as to achieve major technological breakthrough.

The major breakthrough of high-tech items is the first factor of the new revolution of agricultural technology. Its powerful motivating functions lie in the merging of various subjects, especially that of agricultural science and biological science and the building of new scientific system composed of inter discipline subjects and boundary subjects. This will create basic conditions for the new agricultural revolution. The breakthrough in high-tech is based on the overall development of science and technology. China must strengthen the scientific work and, on this basis, make full use of China’s features and advantages in achieving major technological breakthrough amid the constant economic growth.

The focus and layout of development: Closely centering around the demand of agriculture towards science and technology at this new stage, we should stress high-quality, high-yield and high-efficiency agriculture on the basis of the original yield-raising technologies; increase farmers’ income; guarantee food security; protect ecological environment; and take part in international competition. We should establish a new system under which the breakthrough in a batch of major common technologies and high-techs would be achieved, a large number of talent be brought up, a large batch of internationally advanced scientific bases be established so as to realize a new leap forward for farming technologies. In the coming 5 to 20 years, we should place our emphasis on the following aspects:

We should focus our effort on the breeding of special and new high-quality animal and plant varieties to push forward the optimization of farm production and agricultural structure. We should intensify the research and development of high-efficiency husbandry and fishery, step up basic farmland construction and farming facility construction, especially in water conservancy, raising the fertility of soil, improving middle- and low- yield farmland and the comprehensive productivity of animals and plants. Food security should be top priority in development as the Chinese people’s nutrition and health is placed high on agenda. Water-saving irrigation technologies will be another focus for the sustainable development. The other important aspects are the research on the forest and farm ecological environment, desert and sand treatment, artificial control, disaster prevention and reduction and modern-equipped agriculture. The development of farm product processing will provide new points of growth for rural economy, especially food and fodder industries. We should improve the synergy, industrial upgrading and industrialized operation while extending the agriculture into a more in-depth area in order to rationalize the rural industrial structure. Great efforts should be made in developing the special farm, forest and aquatic products. With the help of bio-tech, information technology and other high-techs, the industrialization of agricultural science and technology should also be advanced. Regional development, particularly of the western and central regions, should be stressed, and agricultural modernization should be first realized in the east. At present, transferring the technologies to the west brings a historic opportunity to western areas, which have great potentials to absorb these technologies. The schedule and layout of such projects should be arranged differently. Some items, such as the breeding of new varieties of animals and plants, may yield fast and major results due to China’s biological diversity and regional extensiveness.

II. With the help of increasing national strength a revolutionary reform in the application of science and technology will be launched to make comprehensive use of science and technology and restructure the agricultural system centering on industrial upgrading.

The change of agricultural mechanism will help tap the huge potentials of the agriculture with the same amount of resources by playing the role of transferring and substituting science and technology in a bid to achieve the same result with half work. This is where the hope of our agriculture lies.

(1) Transferring the traditional extensive operation mechanism to intensive operation mechanism. The utility rate of chemical fertilizer is only 30-40% in China. About 30 million tons of fertilizer are wasted a year (equivalent to one-third of the production capability). The irrigation water use rate is only 30-40% a year. Four times of the effective water supply from Yellow River are wasted each year. China’s high-yield fields only make up for a quarter of the total. There is a great gap among the levels of agricultural development in the east, middle and west. All these are the sources of potentials. If the "precise agriculture" is adopted to make our agriculture transfer towards knowledge-intensive, technology-intensive and resource-saving agriculture and realize fundamental change in mechanism, these items alone will meet the basic need of new agricultural science and technology revolution and new round of fast growth of agriculture.

(2) Transferring the traditional grain development mechanism to macro food development mechanism. Considering the fact that there is a rich variety of food resources and a large population, we can make use of the new food resources to create new food varieties. The massive role of revolution will be hard to estimate.

(3) Transferring the traditional dualistic structure of planting to threefold structure. The structure of "grain crops – economic crops’’ will be changed to "grain crops – fodder crops – economic crops". This is an important way to tap the potentials of fodder and increase the output of high-quality fodder. There has been a great waste of fodder in China. Due to irrational makeup of nutrition elements, about a quarter of fodder for poultry will be lost. If the threefold structure will be adopted, the fodder industry will develop as a separate industry. Not more resource will be consumed, but several times more high-quality fodder will be produced. Fodder industry will be developed jointly with husbandry, processing and other sideline operations. This suggestion was put forward in China several years ago, but it developed slowly. This is not just a technical problem but a complex engineering project that involves millions of people. What is most important is the change of the quality of laborers and change of their ideas. It must be regarded as a technological revolution.

(4) Transferring the traditional arable land development mechanism to the overall national land resource development mechanism. China’s vast hills, grassland, fresh water, sea and beaches can all be used to develop different types of agriculture, including grassland and sand industries. With the use of high and new technologies, we can also develop agricultural industries that are ever new to the human beings and have boundless prospects.

(5) Transferring the traditional simple farm product processing mechanism to multiple value-adding modern processing mechanism. With this measure, the farm products will be utilized at various levels for the building of a massive modern agricultural industry. It then places higher demand on the farm production itself. As the agriculture is developing in depth and width, the rural laborers will have more channels for employment. A revived agriculture is where the hope of the countryside of China lies.

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