Facility agriculture, the only way to produce food

Facility agriculture has the characteristics of high input, high technology content, high quality, high yield and high benefit, and is the most dynamic modern new agriculture. Facility agriculture is a systematic engineering covering construction, materials, machinery, automatic control, varieties, horticultural technology, cultivation technology and management, and its development is one of the important symbols of the level of agricultural modernization.

Generally speaking, it is a modern agricultural model that engages in agricultural production almost entirely by means of technology in the way and means of modern industrialization.

The development of facility agriculture is an important symbol of agricultural modernization and an important construction task of modern agricultural development. Facility agriculture plays an increasingly important role in ensuring the seasonal balanced supply of agricultural products such as vegetables, meat, eggs and milk in China, increasing farmers' income and improving the lives of urban and rural residents, and will certainly become an indispensable part of today's social life and economic development.

Developing facility agriculture is an inevitable choice to tap the potential of food supply

At present, China's food security is strong, and residents' food consumption needs are more diversified, and they have changed from "eating enough" to "eating well".

Developing facility agriculture is an inevitable choice to tap the potential of food supply. The traditional food supply can no longer meet the changing food demand. China's per capita GDP has exceeded 10,000 US dollars, reaching the middle-income level, people's demand for food quantity, quality, diversity will increase, the structure will also change, the direct consumption of staple foods will decrease, the demand for fruits, vegetables, high-quality protein will increase.

However, from the supply side, although China's grain harvest in successive years, steadily standing at the level of 1.3 trillion catty, effectively ensure that more than 1.4 billion people eat, eat well, but still need to rationally realize that China's food is in a tight balance, agricultural imports are huge, in recent years, soybean imports of about 100 million tons per year.

Facility agriculture will bridge the contradiction between food supply and demand in terms of space, time and variety. China's cultivated land resources are limited, and there are strict use control, the central document No. 1 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", therefore, from the space point of view, the incremental area that can be used for the production of non-food products is almost no, and it is necessary to improve the land yield rate through the development of facility agriculture. We will increase the supply of agricultural products such as fruits, vegetables, bacteria, 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.

Overall situation of China's facility agriculture development

The overall situation of facility agriculture development in our country is good. Facility agriculture is the product of the transformation from traditional agriculture to modern agriculture in China, and is an important development direction of agricultural modernization.

First, the scale of development is large. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, facility agriculture has developed rapidly under the guidance of many policies. Data show that the area of facility horticultural crops in China alone is more than 42 million mu, accounting for more than 80% of the total area of facility agriculture in the world.

In terms of facility types, China's facility agriculture is currently dominated by solar greenhouses, plastic greenhouses and small and medium-sized arch sheds, which have obvious advantages of less investment, energy saving and cost saving, among which solar greenhouses are original in China.

Second, high production efficiency. Facility agriculture has the characteristics of intensive and efficient, and the average yield of facility agriculture is more than 20 times that of field crops and 4-5 times that of open field horticultural crops.

The development direction and policy orientation of facility agriculture. From the perspective of practical experience and development trend, facility agriculture is not only a key move to solve the shortage of cultivated land resources in China and the contradiction of rising food demand quality, but also an inevitable choice to coordinate to achieve heat and protein from cultivated land, rivers, lakes and seas, and plants, animals and microorganisms.

In the future, efforts should be made from multiple dimensions such as facilities and equipment and variety diversity to fully tap the potential of facility agriculture to increase production. First, facilities and equipment have been modernized. Modern information technologies such as big data, artificial intelligence, and the Internet of Things will be used to upgrade existing planting and breeding facilities, build energy-saving and environment-friendly facilities such as smart greenhouses and new thermal greenhouses, build plant factories, digital pastures, and smart fishing grounds, and improve the supply capacity of facility products.

Second, the variety of facilities is diversified. Relying on the production base of improved crop varieties, cultivate facility vegetables, melons, fruits, edible fungi and other characteristic varieties according to local conditions, increase the development and protection of varieties suitable for facility cultivation, and constantly enrich the types of facility varieties.

Third, promote industrial clusters. According to different agricultural ecological types, industrial basic conditions, and product market demand, the development layout of facility agriculture should be rationally planned, and a number of modern facility agriculture industrial belts with industrial cluster development, advanced factor agglomeration, complete industrial chain, and strong supply capacity should be built. Explore the use of non-cultivated land resources such as the Gobi and desert, develop Gobi agriculture, enrich agricultural formats, and expand industrial space.

In terms of policy support, we should give full play to the role of a competent government and an effective market, guide and leverage more private capital to enter the country with greater financial input, and form a pattern of diversified investment. Increase the research and development and promotion of intelligent and green facility agriculture machinery and equipment, and further improve the economic and ecological benefits of facility agriculture; Increase the construction of infrastructure, support the construction of cold chain facilities such as field pre-cooling, graded packaging, storage, transportation and preservation, and provide a good external environment for the development of facility agriculture.