Chinese agriculture bets on knowledge

The Asian giant made an experience for ten years to develop agricultural production that will now replicate millions of farmers in 210.

24/07/2018

In March of 2018, China released the result of an experiment carried out over 10 years with 21 millions of agricultural producers (10% of the total), who work 37,7 million hectares in productive units of 0,6 average hectares.

In that experiment they played 1.200 scientists and researchers, 65.000 local officials, and 140.000 industry representatives -Private, public, national and transnational- linked to agricultural production.

The results were submitted to international arbitration and published in the journal Nature of the United States. According to the study, the production of corn, rice and wheat grew 11% in this period, while the use of fertilizers decreased between 15% and 18%, with a rescue of 1,2 million tons of nitrogen.

This has reduced the emission of carbon dioxide (CO2) an 15% on the sown surface; and it means that productivity gains (higher yields / lower inputs) amounted to 12.200 millions of dollars in terms of value.

China has 22% of the world population (1.400 million inhabitants), and has 7% of the world's fertile land, with the peculiarity that the proportion of water per inhabitant is one third of the global average, with large areas in situation of chronic drought. With these resources China has become the largest grain producer in the world (650 million tons in 2017).

The experiment was carried out maintaining the same extreme degree of fragmentation of the productive units characteristic of Chinese agriculture, and which constitutes the fundamental difference with the agricultural production of the West.

Secondly, most of the investment that was made in the area under experiment was in "intangible capitals" (creation of telecommunications networks to transmit information on irrigation, density of plantings and sowings, depth and quantity in the placement of seeds). More than 70.000 millions of dollars were allocated to that investment.

It should be added that practically all Chinese farmers have access to the Internet through fiber optic networks that cover the entire country, starting with the poorest regions and the most marginalized places.

The sense of investment in "intangible capital" has been promote connectivity and systematically combat the isolation of producers in the area under experiment, giving them instant information about the main variables of their daily activity. The experiment will be extended to the 210 millions of peasants of the People's Republic in the next 7 years.

The Chinese agriculture has been the largest creator of CO2 of the global agri-food system in the last 30 years, due to the use of 305 kilos of fertilizers per hectare and per year in that period. It is four times more than the world average.

The experiment carried out in the People's Republic shows that knowledge transformed into a factor of production, even above capital and labor, is the main source of increased productivity in modern agriculture.

Source

Clarin