Organic Agriculture is the Development Trend and Personal Consumption Belief
Today, with frequent food safety incidents, "organic agriculture experiment" once became a hot topic for news media to pursue and report. In recent years, organic agriculture has also become a hot industry for cross-border investment of major commercial giants.
Contemporary traditional agriculture has brought abundant material products to people. At the same time, due to unrestrained demand for natural resources, excessive use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, the shortcomings of cultivated land reduction, water depletion, climate change, soil erosion, food safety have gradually become prominent.
Recently, at the theme forum of "Guiyang International Forum on Ecological Civilization 2014 Annual Meeting", Chinese and foreign experts and scholars focused on the two hot topics of "ecological agriculture and food safety", "agro-ecological transformation and food security". They conducted in-depth discussions and exchanges to find a realistic path for the coordinated development of agro-ecological transformation and food safety.
Predicament of "Organic Agriculture Experiment"
In 2000, Anjinlei, a farmer in East Zilong Village, Matun Town, Zaoqiang County, Hebei Province, contracted 40 mu of land in the village and began to practice his organic cultivation of "no pesticide, no fertilizer, no herbicide spraying", trying to pick up traditional farming methods. Anjinlei collects manure from livestock and poultry in fertilizer bags, applies manure from livestock and poultry in more than 40 mu of land, and intercrops cotton, soybean and sesame. Over the past ten years, no serious pests have ever occurred in his farmland. In early 2013, Anjinlei was also named "Person of the Year in Hebei in 2012" and became the star of "Organic Agriculture Experiment".
In 2005, Liufang Village, Liping County, Guizhou Province, similar "organic agriculture experiment" is also quietly beginning. Wu Shixian, a farmer, took the lead in guiding villagers to restore the traditional farming methods of the Dong nationality. They used 30 mu paddy fields as experiments, instead of planting hybrid rice, planting traditional rice seeds reserved by the local agricultural sciences, no longer using pesticides and chemical fertilizers, and partially restored the Dong nationality's "rice, fish and duck" farming tradition. In the following year, organic cultivation began to be popularized in 700 Mu paddy fields of 164 villagers in the village. Because of the green and environmental protection of agricultural products, it once attracted purchasing groups from Hong Kong, Chengdu, Guiyang and other big cities. In early June 2011, Wu Shixian was nominated for the SEE. TNC Ecology Award, and the experiment in Liufang Village began to be known by more people.
However, the ecological pursuit of agriculture and efficient income increase seem to be a contradiction. Among the praises, the organic agriculture experiment in Liufang village has little economic benefits, and the outflow of rural labor makes fewer and fewer people stick to organic agriculture in the village. Anjinlei's experiment is more regarded as a way of life and is appraised as a "philosopher in the countryside".
More importantly, this attempt to build food safety firewalls by traditional farming methods seems to be a case, which is difficult to promote in China with a large number of people and a small number of land. "Under the limited cultivated land area, if modern science and technology are totally excluded, according to the production mode of organic agriculture, China's 1.36 billion people will not be able to feed." On July 11, Ye Xingqing, Minister of Rural Economic Research, Development Research Center of the State Council, said at the forum of "Eco-agriculture and Food Safety".
Organic agriculture is a kind of farming concept, and the choice of organic products is a kind of consumption belief. The foreign people choose organic products not because of safety and health considerations, but more because of a sense of protection of the existing ecological environment. The development of organic agriculture in China is still in its infancy, and it still needs a period of practice to sublimate to the situation of automatic protection of the ecological environment.
