China Exclusive: Corn modernization takes root, yields high

By CnAgri Print

CHANGCHUN, Nov.16 (Xinhua) -- After a corn combine finished reaping recently, Gu Chunwen, a farmer in northeastern China's Jilin Province, was thrilled with the impact of a choice he had made some months before. While neighbors lost crops to natural disaster, his farm produced 50 percent more than last year.

The decision was made in March when Gu visited a seed shop and asked for advice. A local agricultural technician suggested he use a new variety of seed and join a test program designed for the strain. In following the recommendation, Gu became part of scientific initiatives to increase domestic corn production in China in order to meet growing demand.

The 40-year-old farmer's instinct proved right when pest outbreaks and typhoons battered Jilin, China's corn belt, in summer. "Many fields suffered reduction. But my crops were resistant to the gales and, to my surprise, corn armyworms as well," he says.

Gu received a bumper harvest as China, the world's second-biggest corn consumer, worked to up its efficiency in corn cultivation. The country's growing appetite for meat has boosted imports of corn -- the main feed for livestock. But its own corn yields per unit only equate to 60 percent of those reaped in the U.S. midwest.

Wang Lichun, a researcher with Jilin Academy of Agricultural sciences, headed the project that involved Gu's farm. Wang's team, sponsored by the state, has been working on new seed variety Limin 33 for eight years.

The researcher's technicians also helped farmers set up a trickle irrigation system and paid regular visits to apply fertilizers and pesticides with professional equipment.

According to Zhao Ming, deputy director of the corn expert panel at the Ministry of Agriculture, China has built more than 3,500 high-yield farms, and each one covers about 10,000 mu (666 hectares) of cornfields.

China is expecting to harvest 201 million tonnes of corn this year, up 4.1 percent from last year, according to data from the National Grain and Oils Information Center.

"The historical high output can be attributed to intensive cultivation in addition to expansion of high-yield cornfields," Zhao says.

Jilin alone has set up over 500 corn farms that incorporated dozens of small family plots. Because of bigger sizes and corporate management, the farms have been able to adopt modern technologies to grow corn.

For example, in 2010, Gansu Agricultural Reclamation Corporation contracted 1,500 hectares of farmland in Jilin's Qianguo County. After two years of integrated and industrialized farming, yield per mu (0.067 hectare) in the company's cornfield turned out 40 percent higher than the county's average.

"By building a new irrigation system, the farm also saved water usage by 40 percent," says Wan Zunxin, general manager of the corporation's Qianguo farm. Wan said his company planned to at least quadruple the farm's acreage in five years.

However, some agricultural scientists have questioned whether it is ecologically correct to push land resources to extremes. The Chinese government propped up efforts to modernize corn production following concerns that its grain self-sufficiency may be undermined, but corn imports now only make up five percent of the country's consumption.

Liu Xiaoran, general secretary with the institute of grain economy in Jilin, believes importing corn will help Chinese farmlands recover from excessive cultivation. Soils in the northeast have thinned by 50 percent during the last half century, according to Liu, who warns that "land productivity in China's corn belt may be irreversibly damaged."

But for farmers like Gu, they hope high-yield corn projects can expand. Gu estimates his crops can earn him 18,500 yuan (2,960 U.S. dollars) more than last year. "The result is so good. I think next year all families in my village will turn to the new seed," he predicts.

Source: Xinhua News Agency