Thinking on the development status and trend of facility agriculture

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs jointly with the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Natural Resources formulated and issued the National Modern Facility Agriculture Construction Plan (2023-2030), which is the first modern facility agriculture construction plan issued by China and has important guiding significance for promoting the modernization of facility agriculture. Facility agriculture is facing unprecedented development opportunities, but also facing the new situation and new environment of the coexistence of socio-economic and industrial endogenous factors. Innovative thinking, innovative policies and innovative measures have become the basic ways that the development of facility agriculture must face and adopt in the new era, and the sustainable development of facility agriculture also needs new thinking.

First, the development status and importance of facility agriculture

Facility agriculture is an important part of China's modern agriculture, the product of China's transformation from traditional agriculture to modern agriculture, is an important development direction of agricultural modernization, and plays a huge role in national economic development and agricultural product supply. At present, the overall development of facilities agriculture in China is good, facilities agriculture technology is gradually mature, suitable for different regions, different natural conditions of facilities technology continuous improvement, coupled with policy support and technical guidance, China's facility agriculture area has expanded rapidly, has become a global facility agriculture production country, the area and output are in the forefront of the world.

In addition, China's cultivated land resources are limited, and there are strict use control, the first document in 2022 clearly states that "permanent basic farmland is mainly used for food production, and high-standard farmland is all used for food production in principle", the report of the 20th National Congress of the Party proposed that "gradually build all permanent basic farmland into high-standard farmland". This means that more and more arable land is being used to secure food supplies.

Therefore, from the perspective of space, the incremental area that can be used for the production of non-food products is small, and it is necessary to improve the land yield through the development of facility agriculture, and increase the supply of agricultural products such as fruit and vegetable bacteria and meat, eggs and milk. From the perspective of time, crop growth is affected by regional resource endowments, temperature, light and other conditions, and has a relatively fixed growth cycle. Facility agriculture breaks through the natural conditions of agricultural production to a certain extent, and is realized regardless of the four seasons, regardless of the north and south, promoting the annual supply of agricultural products, and is an important guarantee for the seasonal balanced supply of "vegetable basket" products. From the variety point of view, facility agriculture is not only used in a large area of vegetable, fruit, flowers and other horticultural crops, but also increasingly used in aquaculture, livestock farming and other fields, and also plays an important role in providing high-quality protein.

Second, the challenges faced by facilities agriculture in our country

1, the total amount is insufficient and backward facilities coexist

Although the facility planting industry has a certain scale, but the layout is not reasonable, the equipment is relatively backward, nearly 80% of the distribution in the Huang-Huai-Hai, Bohai Sea and the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and other major grain producing areas, small and medium-sized arch shed and plastic greenhouse area accounted for more than 70%. The total amount of facility livestock and facility fisheries is insufficient, the scale rate of beef cattle and sheep farming is only 33% and 45%, respectively, and the problem of old equipment such as aquaculture ponds and traditional cages in aquaculture facilities is widespread. Technical equipment is still not matched, some special breeding varieties, fine control equipment, important data management software also rely on imports, mechanization, intelligence level is generally low.

2. The task of green transformation is heavy

The facility planting crop varieties are single, continuous cropping obstacles are serious, and the amount of fertilizer and pesticide is too large. The main body of breeding and breeding in livestock and poultry scale facilities is separated, and the breeding cycle is not smooth. The treatment rate of aquaculture tail water is low, and the problem of water eutrophication is prominent. Traditional facility agriculture consumes a lot of energy, and the application of new clean and renewable energy is insufficient.

3. Intensive production needs to be strengthened

Land use is still extensive, and the land utilization rate of traditional thick earth wall solar greenhouse is less than 40%. The management body is small in scale and low in organization, the per capita greenhouse management area is less than 1/5 of the developed countries, the per capita number of poultry raised and managed is only about 1/6 of the developed countries, and the per unit yield of factory recirculating aquaculture is only about 1/3 of the developed countries.

4. Supporting services are lagging behind

The standard system of facility agriculture is not sound. Social services such as the design and construction of facility agriculture, research and development, manufacturing and operation and maintenance of supporting equipment are lagging behind. The whole industrial chain is not developed enough, and the shortcomings such as commercial seedling rearing, storage preservation and cold chain logistics, and grain production area drying are prominent. Insufficient brand marketing services, market supply and demand information docking is not smooth.

5. Insufficient support for elements

The development of facility agriculture needs to strengthen land security. The construction investment is large, the operation risk is high, and the supply of financial and insurance products can not keep up. Modern facility production technology training is insufficient, professional management personnel and technical personnel are relatively scarce, it is difficult to support the rapid development of facility agriculture needs.

1. Optimize and upgrade technical equipment

Mechanization of facility production operations, automation of environmental regulation and low carbon energy saving of production process are the development direction of facility agriculture. It is necessary to transform and upgrade low-grade facility greenhouses, develop expert systems for specific facility crop types, and combine the Internet of Things technology to achieve individual control of individual greenhouses. In addition, make full use of the advantages of natural resources, such as the northwest of China has a vast area, sufficient light resources, with the help of phase change heat storage new materials, heat pump - water tank heat storage, underground space heat storage and other technologies, the production of facility agriculture and renewable energy (solar energy, wind energy, etc.) effectively combined, developed suitable for non-cultivated land production of facility agriculture structure type. Low-cost, miniaturized, stable and reliable environmental control system and intelligent decision-making production management platform promote the further optimization and upgrading of facility agriculture technology, achieve the control of plant and animal breeding requirements to meet the best production environment and the purpose of high yield, high quality, high efficiency, safety and annual production, and realize intensification, commercialization and industrialization. Then it will effectively promote the process of agricultural modernization.

2. Strengthen control over ecological resources

The ecological problems of facility agriculture production still have not received enough attention, such as groundwater exploitation, geothermal utilization, irrigation fertilizer water discharge, straw treatment, matrix and other waste production materials treatment and other control is weak. It will not only bring hidden dangers to development, but also conducive to the promotion and application of new ecological green technologies. Therefore, the key development areas of facility agriculture should be promoted and organized by local governments, combined with relevant regulations on ecological environment, aiming at the differences between facility agriculture and field agriculture, formulate ecological resource management requirements for facility agriculture and strengthen control through implementation.

3, support the construction of a number of complete equipment test and promotion bases

In the face of the new industrial situation and technological progress, the whole process of information management, intelligent equipment in the key links, and mechanized equipment in the main links need to accelerate the research and development and application. The complete set determines the performance of the equipment, and the integration of engineering, equipment and technology determines the feasibility of the application of the equipment, and even the application benefit. Based on the mass categories with obvious technological differences, the construction of a complete set of equipment test and promotion base can integrate engineering and technology well and solve practical problems at the application level.

4. Build a characteristic facility system

On the basis of improving existing projects, accelerate the promotion and application of intelligent technologies and achievements, build a number of standardized, standardized and systematic intelligent and efficient facility planting projects, and gradually form an intelligent technology and facility system of facility agriculture with Chinese characteristics, realize large-scale commercial production, and form a high-tech industry.

Under the background of the implementation of the rural revitalization strategy, facility agriculture will continue to become the focus of social attention and become a hot spot in the field of modern agriculture. In the future, facility agriculture will enter the broad stage of social and economic competition, and will provide safer, richer and more sophisticated diversified products and services, creating more rich sources for a better life. Driven by emerging technologies, facility agriculture will undergo profound changes at the production end and in the supply chain.