Chapter 13 Traditional Agriculture and Modernization

Above we introduced various aspects of ancient Chinese agriculture and ancient Chinese agronomy respectively, and now we will make a general inspection. The development of ancient Chinese agriculture did not go smoothly, and it encountered many difficulties and setbacks.From the above description, we can see that the natural conditions of our country have both favorable and unfavorable and even severe aspects for the development of ancient agriculture.Natural disasters are quite frequent in the history of our country.According to Deng Yunte's "China's Famine Relief History", from 206 AD to 1936, my country's floods, droughts, locusts, hail, wind, epidemics, earthquakes, frost, snow and other disasters occurred 5,150 times, on average every four months Among them, there were 1035 droughts, which occurred once every two years on average, and 1037 floods, which also occurred once every two years on average.Land conditions are also a mixed bag.Many of the existing cultivated lands in our country are the original low-yield fields, which are regarded by foreigners as "marginal land" that is not suitable for cultivation.From the perspective of social conditions, my country has been under the rule of feudal landlords for a long time, and the majority of farmers have been severely exploited by the landlords and the feudal government. This exploitation has reduced farmers' production capacity and ability to resist natural disasters.In particular, the chronic disease of the feudal landlord system—the vicious development of land annexation often intensified various social contradictions, leading to large-scale peasant uprisings or wars among various groups within the ruling class.Ethnic conflicts can also develop into ethnic wars.National wars sometimes follow class wars one after the other.Wars are often intertwined with natural disasters, like a bloody mouth, ruthlessly devouring the achievements of agricultural production accumulated over the years.In the history of our country, it is not uncommon for natural disasters and man-made disasters to cause the tragedy of thousands of miles away.In the late feudal society, my country's agriculture faced enormous pressure caused by population expansion.

However, although these difficulties and setbacks have caused serious damage to my country's ancient agriculture, they cannot stop its progress.The traditional Chinese agriculture with its multi-faceted broad system and the fine tradition of intensive cultivation is like a deep-rooted tree that cuts off a big branch and soon grows a new big branch to replace it. Not only is the ground still full of shade, but It's more lush than before. How did the characteristics of ancient Chinese agriculture come into being, such as multi-convergence and intensive cultivation? We know that agricultural production is based on animals and plants, and cannot be separated from nature. The natural environment has a great impact on agricultural production.However, the main body of agricultural production is man, and man is not just passively adapting to nature, but can actively transform nature.The so-called pros and cons of natural conditions are relative terms. Their effects on agricultural production are positive or negative, whether they are large or small, and often depend on human beings' ability to use and transform nature.For example, a torrential river, when people can't control it, often floods and ravages the earth; once people control it, the river will obey people's orders, bringing benefits to humans in irrigation, shipping, and power generation.We can also see that overly "favorable" natural conditions (such as an overabundance of natural food stocks) often encourage people's dependence on nature; while relatively severe natural conditions will instead inspire people's courage and wisdom to transform nature.Therefore, what is more meaningful to the development of agricultural production is not the "abundance" of natural conditions, but its diversity.Ancient Chinese agriculture benefited from this diversity.It is not confined to a corner like some ancient civilizations, but takes place in a very wide area.It spans three zones of cold, warm and hot, and has vast plains and basins, continuous mountains and hills, and numerous rivers and lakes. The natural conditions vary greatly from place to place, and the resources of animals and plants are very rich, which is incomparable to any ancient civilization origin.On such a broad stage, the agricultural practice of the ancient Chinese working people is unparalleled in the ancient world in terms of breadth and depth.Based on the diversity of natural conditions and social traditions, various ethnic groups in various regions have formed relatively heterogeneous agricultural cultures. These cultures complement and promote each other in frequent exchanges, forming a diverse and extensive system.Under this system, agriculture has the internal power of development and innovation, and there is a lot of room for maneuver. "The east is not bright, the west is bright, and the south is dark." This makes it extremely strong in resisting disasters and overcoming difficulties in general. Ability.

In the rich agricultural practice of ancient Chinese farmers, a fine tradition of intensive farming has emerged.Intensive farming is essentially an ingenious agricultural technique created by the ancient Chinese people in response to different natural conditions, overcoming unfavorable factors and promoting favorable factors.The exchange of agricultural cultures of various ethnic groups in various regions has promoted the formation of the intensive farming science and technology system and continuously enriched its content.In a sense, intensive farming is the product of multiple converging agricultural systems.

In addition, the emergence of the intensive farming science and technology system is also related to certain social and economic conditions, especially the feudal landlord system.Under the feudal landlord system, although the exploitation was serious, the land could be bought and sold, and the owner farmers always accounted for a considerable proportion. Attachment to the lord is lighter.Both owner farmers and tenant farmers have greater management autonomy.Therefore, their enthusiasm and initiative in developing agricultural production was much higher than that of medieval European serfs.We know that agricultural production depends on people in the final analysis, and the enthusiasm and initiative of workers is crucial.The agricultural technology of intensive cultivation is based on the premise of giving full play to human subjective initiative.At the same time, due to the weak economic strength of individual peasants and their unstable production conditions, they are often threatened by land annexation and landlords increasing rent and seizing tenants. It is difficult to expand the scale of production. Generally, they can only use more labor on small pieces of land And improve the method of agronomy, try to increase the yield per unit area, in order to solve the livelihood problem of a family of several people.This is also one of the important reasons for the formation of the tradition of intensive farming.

Although our country's ancient agriculture encountered countless natural and man-made disasters, it never caused a major failure due to mistakes in technical guidance.No matter what kind of difficulties and setbacks we encounter, the tradition of intensive farming has never been interrupted, and it is this tradition that has become an important opportunity and means for agricultural production and the recovery of the whole society from difficulties.The agricultural history of the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, the agricultural history of the Liao, Jin and Yuan Dynasties, and the agricultural history of the Qing Dynasty all illustrate this point.

Although China's traditional agriculture has made brilliant achievements, it was mainly formed under the conditions of scattered small farmers in the feudal era, and it was based on manual operation and intuitive experience.Since the traditional agricultural tools did not continue to be improved after the Ming and Qing Dynasties, due to the increase in population, the per capita area of ​​cultivated land decreased, and due to the small and scattered business scale, labor productivity was low, which greatly limited the breadth and depth of commodity economy development, and greatly restricted The scale of the development of other economic and cultural undertakings.On the other hand, although the idea of ​​rationally utilizing natural resources and comprehensively developing agricultural production according to local conditions appeared early in ancient China, and although a benign agricultural ecological system with comprehensive development of various industries was formed in a certain area and within a certain range, under the feudal system and decentralized Under operating conditions, it is impossible to rationally utilize natural resources on a larger scale, and it is impossible to establish a coordinated development relationship between agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, sideline fishery and various industries in the overall production structure.Destruction of forests, pastures, and water resources due to blind development, as well as imbalances in the proportion of agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and fisheries, have also occurred.Judging from the general process of the development of productive forces in human society, traditional agriculture has fallen behind the times and must be replaced by modern agriculture.This substitution has been completed in the process of the birth and development of capitalism in European and American countries.However, due to special historical reasons, China's agriculture has not completely broken away from the scope of traditional agriculture until modern times.The transition from traditional agriculture to modern agriculture and the transformation of our country's agriculture with modern science and equipment are still important tasks in socialist construction today.

But to realize the modernization of China's agriculture, it is not necessary to completely deny China's traditional agriculture.We can only abandon the backward things in traditional agriculture, and inherit and carry forward the reasonable elements.The scientific and technological system of intensive cultivation is the essence and reasonable core of traditional agriculture in my country, and it still maintains vigorous vitality in the transition from traditional agriculture to modern agriculture.For example, it operates intensively, focuses on per unit yield, and uses land resources more economically. This is undoubtedly suitable for my country's current social and economic conditions where there are too many people and little land, and the reserve resources of cultivated land are seriously insufficient.Moreover, the land in the world is limited, but the population is constantly growing. Human beings always have to ask for more and more products from the limited land to meet the needs of the growing population. Yield road.

In the process of realizing agricultural modernization, it is necessary to learn advanced western agricultural science and technology.However, it should be noted that although modern western agriculture has applied the achievements of modern natural science and achieved great achievements, modern western natural science is the result of decomposing nature into individual parts for isolated research, and does not pay enough attention to the overall connection between things .Therefore, modern western agriculture goes against the nature of agriculture to a certain extent.Problems such as environmental pollution, soil erosion, and energy "input-output ratio" decreasing with the increase of input in western modern agriculture cannot but be said to be related to this.In contrast, traditional Chinese agricultural science and technology pay more attention to the overall agricultural production, and pay more attention to the adaptation and utilization of the interdependence and mutual restriction among various factors such as agricultural organisms and natural environment in the agricultural ecosystem, which is more in line with the nature of agriculture.Therefore, the active role of human beings in agricultural production can be brought into full play, and the relationship between human beings and nature can be more harmonious.In a certain sense, this represents the development direction of agriculture.

In short, the combination of modern science, modern equipment and the fine tradition of intensive cultivation is the only way for China's agricultural modernization, and it will also be the characteristic and advantage of China's agricultural modernization.The essence of traditional Chinese agriculture will live forever in China's future agriculture.

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