Tribute to farming civilization from dry wheat to wheat field show
On June 16, Doudian Village, known as “the first wheat harvesting village in the suburbs of Beijing,” began wheat harvesting.Photo courtesy of Beijing Municipal Bureau of Agriculture and Rural Affairs
On June 18th, Tongzhou began to harvest wheat. The harvester was turned on and the wheat was collected into the cargo hold, leaving only straw in the field.Beijing News reporter Cao Jingrui
In June, Beijing, beside the endless wheat fields, you can always meet citizens who specially come to watch the “wind blowing wheat waves”. As a large modern metropolis, the reduction of wheat fields is an inevitable process of urbanization, and there are still wheat fields. It has become a fashion show at the moment, but it is more of a tribute to farming culture.
Hao Yide, 82 years old this year, is the former deputy head of the Beijing Agricultural Technology Extension Station. During his tenure, he focused on Beijing’s food crops and cash crops. Like many people of his age, Hao Yide has personally experienced traditional farming at sunrise and returning home at sunset, and has truly experienced the hardships of farming. As the deputy head of the Beijing Agricultural Technology Extension Station, Wang Junying experienced the most glorious era in the history of Beijing’s wheat planting development. Today, at the key point of wheat cultivation in Beijing, the “two generations of wheat people” can still be seen in the wheat fields on the outskirts of Beijing. During the wheat harvest season in 2021, reporters from the Beijing News interviewed Wang Junying, deputy director of the Beijing Agricultural Technology Extension Station and extension researcher, and Hao Yide, the former deputy director and extension researcher of the Beijing Agricultural Technology Extension Station, both new and old. Wheat experts told us the story of changes in Beijing’s wheat fields over the past few decades.
Beijing News: This year, the wheat harvest area in Beijing is nearly 200,000 mu. What is it like in history?
Wang Junying: Since 1949, with the changes in Beijing’s social and economic development, the wheat planting area in Beijing has gone through three stages: increase-stabilization-decrease. In 1949, it was only 1 million mu. In 1976, the area reached 3.12 million mu when the area was the highest. In the 1990s, it stabilized at 2.5-2.8 million mu. After 2000, due to structural adjustments, the wheat area declined rapidly. In 1994, the city’s average yield reached the highest level in history, at 394.87 kg/mu, which was at the leading level in the country at that time. The total output reached its highest in 1992, at 1.114 million tons. In 2014, it also set a record for the highest yield per mu at 681.1 kg/mu. Beijing is also the first region in the country to achieve full mechanization of wheat.
Hao Yide: The development of Beijing wheat is a microcosm of Beijing’s agricultural development. The development of Beijing wheat has gone through four important periods. In the early days of liberation, wheat was mainly dry farmed, with a yield of only a few kilograms per unit. By the end of the 1950s and the beginning of the 1960s, there were irrigation conditions, but flood irrigation was mainly used, and the wheat yield increased significantly. The 1990s ushered in the most glorious period of wheat development in Beijing. During this period, due to the improvement of wheat varieties, the transformation of planting systems, the application of new technologies and new equipment such as water-saving irrigation, and full-course mechanization, the yield of wheat per unit area increased rapidly; Pay attention to the multiple functions of wheat. In addition to the increase in yield, more attention is paid to the improvement of quality and its ecological functions.
The Beijing News: Just mentioned that the wheat planting area has decreased. The data shows that the wheat planting area in Beijing reached 3.12 million mu when the wheat planting area reached its peak. What is the reason?
Wang Junying: The wheat planting area in Beijing has fluctuated several times, mainly due to comprehensive factors such as urban development, policy adjustments, market conditions, and agricultural structure adjustments. The wheat planting area has shown a continuous downward trend in the past 40 years. In 2014, the city implemented the spirit of the transfer festival document of the Municipal Party Committee and Municipal Government. In order to significantly reduce agricultural water use, it actively reduced the wheat planting area from 540,000 mu in 2013 to about 120,000 mu in 2019. This year, the wheat planting area in Beijing has shown an increasing trend, from 126,000 mu last year to nearly 200,000 mu this year. This is due to the implementation of some favorable policies. For example, governments at all levels in Beijing pay more attention to grain production and further consolidate the task of grain planting areas. At the same time, Beijing implemented the renewal project of improved wheat varieties last autumn to distribute wheat seeds to growers for free.
Beijing News: The wheat planting area is decreasing, but the output is also increasing. This is inseparable from technological innovation and the development of modern agriculture. When is the most glorious period of wheat development in Beijing?
Hao Yide: The 1980s and 1990s was a critical period for the development of Beijing wheat. At that time, governments at all levels paid special attention to wheat production. In 1994, the wheat planting area in Beijing was 2.454 million mu, with a yield of 394.87 kg per mu, which became the highest yield per mu in history. The scientific and technological support provided by experts, the whole process of supporting agricultural machinery, and the transformation of the planting system were all factors that prompted the peak per mu yield at that time. At that time, a particularly good atmosphere of benign competition was formed between the districts. The Municipal Bureau of Agriculture regularly organized a wheat expert advisory group to conduct inspections and put forward technical guidance on wheat growth and production issues. All districts would strictly implement them in accordance with expert opinions. “Plant all kinds of strictness”, plant a high level, and also attaches great importance to “landscape”. In spring, Beijing’s wheat fields have become the “beautiful scenery” of the suburbs.
Wang Junying: Wheat irrigation methods have also made great progress, flood irrigation-border irrigation-water-saving irrigation. In 1988, shortly after I graduated, I went to a site in Nanfaxin Town, Shunyi District to study the application technology of semi-mobile sprinkler irrigation on wheat. At that time, this sprinkler irrigation equipment was first introduced in Beijing, and it was considered the most advanced water saving at the time. The irrigation method is more than 30% more water-saving than border irrigation, up to 50%. In the mid-1990s, the penetration rate of semi-mobile sprinkler irrigation in Shunyi District reached about 90% when it was the highest. Even now, this semi-mobile sprinkler irrigation is still used in many places. In recent years, the Beijing area has introduced new water-saving irrigation equipment such as circular sprinklers, reel sprinklers, and fixed sprinklers. The degree of automation is higher and the labor intensity is also greatly reduced. Farmers no longer have to carry pipes. Left in the wheat field.
In addition, I was more impressed that since 2000, in order to solve the problem of difficult grain sales, Beijing began to develop high-quality wheat and explore contract agriculture. At that time, the city extension station united with the city’s technical extension departments to organize farms and large growers in various districts to plant high-quality wheat varieties, and provide technical guidance to ensure that farmers’ wheat output meets the purchase standards of high-quality wheat, and contacted flour mills and other purchasers to The price is about 10% higher than that of common wheat in the market. The purchase of high-quality wheat from growers promotes the promotion of high-quality wheat in the city, and also promotes farmers’ income. This work was implemented on a large scale in the city from 2002 to 2005, and it was done relatively early in the country.
Beijing News: Beijingers have been familiar with the landscape of wheat fields from the time it was once commonplace to now. Some wheat fields in the suburbs of Beijing have also become popular online celebrity check-in sites for many citizens this month. How do you view this change?
Wang Junying: Combining wheat fields with farming culture and inheriting it is what Beijing has been doing in recent years. For example, in 2010, the Municipal Promotion Station held the first wheat harvest festival with the theme of “Golden Wheat Fields Happy to Revel, Citizens Going to the Countryside to Experience”, and later also held a series of activities of the Catcher in the Rye. Now many districts, such as Shunyi District, Fangshan District, etc., also hold the sickle festival and the wheat harvest festival every year, giving the wheat harvest a special sense of ceremony, and also allowing people living in the city to be in the wheat field and become the catcher of the wheat field. , Feel the farming culture. Some farms also combine agriculture, farming culture with tourism, by providing immersive farming experiences or organizing various activities, so that citizens, especially children in the city, can inherit farming culture.
In addition, from the perspective of the development path of big cities, the reduction of farmland is the inevitable necessity of urbanization and the inevitable advancement of agricultural civilization to urban civilization. Specifically in Beijing, the number of wheat fields has decreased and the city has grown bigger. But this is not inconsistent with paying tribute to farming civilization.
Beijing News reporter Cao Jingrui and Yang Yijing
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