Chapter 38 2. The biggest challenge facing food production

Open Hugo or Dickens's masterpieces, there is no shortage of such descriptions - a mother with a face full of sorrow and withered breasts, holding a newborn baby and crying: "What am I going to feed you?!" Today, it's not just a poor woman who is crying, but the common mother of mankind - the earth! It is not the negligence of the earth mother, nor the incompetence of the earth mother, but it is our own fault - the unlimited population expansion makes the earth overwhelmed. Decades ago, human beings used their ignorance and arrogance to regard nature as an inexhaustible treasure, claiming that with their own wisdom and ability, nature could increase production without limit and satisfy Unlimited population growth.When the world's population snowballed, we discovered that the resources of nature are limited, and the output of nature is also limited.No matter how hard we try, no matter how advanced science is, limited arable land is doomed to limited output.

——There is only one earth for human beings! ——The Chinese with yellow skin and black eyes only have 9.6 million square kilometers of land under their feet! Our ancestors did not have the feeling of every inch of land and gold today.For quite a long period of time, our ancestors mainly relied on reclaiming wasteland to increase the cultivated area to feed the increasing population.From the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period to the Qin and Han Dynasties, the population soared from 10 to 20 million to more than 50 million. During the reign of Emperor Wu of the Western Han Dynasty, 700,000 people immigrated to the Loess Plateau to reclaim wasteland, turning the Loess Plateau from a nomadic area into an agricultural area.When there is a contradiction between man and land, the main means to expand the scope of land use is reclamation, that is, reclamation of unused wasteland suitable for agriculture.

At the end of the Warring States period, China had only 90 million mu of arable land and 85 million mu of grain fields. By 1949, our grain sown area had reached 1.65 billion mu, an increase of 19.4 times. However, while the arable land increased, the population of our country also increased rapidly, from 20 million to 540 million, an increase of 27 times. The growth of population can be endless, but the growth of arable land is limited.By the time of liberation, most of the wasteland that could be reclaimed in China had been reclaimed, and the land that could be used was basically used. It was already very difficult to increase the land.Although after liberation, in order to relieve the pressure on the population, some compulsory methods were adopted, including reclamation of lakes and seas, etc., in an attempt to feed the growing population by increasing the area of ​​cultivated land, but the limit was reached in 1957. There is no growth anymore, instead it is declining year by year.Correspondingly, except in 1956 and 1957, when the sown area of ​​grain exceeded 2 billion mu, and in 1958, it exceeded 1.9 billion mu, all other years hovered between 1.7 and 1.8 billion mu, and began to show a downward trend year by year since the 1980s. By 1994, the sown area of ​​grain had dropped to 1.64 billion mu, falling back to the level of 1949.At this time, the population was more than double what it was in 1949.At this time, the Chinese finally understood that not only could we not increase the land, but it was also very difficult to maintain the existing land.

According to the introduction by Mr. Zhu Guohong in "The Theory of the Relationship between Man and Land——A Systematic Study on the Relationship Between Population and Land in China", the ratio of man to land in China was 9.15 in AD 2; it reached 10.7 in AD 146; it began to decline in 961 and fell in 1109 to 5.5; to 3.7 in 1776; to 3.23 in 1893, to 2.94 in 1933, and to 2.7 in 1949.But now, the ratio of people to land is only 1.5, which is only 1/2 of that in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China. That is to say, the population has doubled, but the ratio of people to land has been reduced by half.

This is still seen from the total amount of cultivated land. If we carefully analyze the specific distribution of China's cultivated land, it will make us feel the pressure of survival.The plain area of ​​China's land resources accounts for only 34% of the country's land area, while the high mountains and plateaus that are extremely costly to cultivate and are even unsuitable for cultivation account for 25%, and the rest are middle and low mountains and hills. More, less output.After considering factors such as topography, heat and moisture, relevant experts believe that only 1/4 of my country's total land area is suitable for cultivation, with great potential for productivity.In addition, the distribution of cultivated land resources in my country is extremely uneven.In about one-third of the provinces, the per capita arable land is less than 1 mu, and in more than half of the provinces, the per capita arable land is lower than the national average.

Some Western scholars believe that according to the current level of agricultural technology and modernization in developed countries, if a country’s per capita arable land is less than 6 mu, it is difficult to imagine a fundamental solution to the food problem.However, China's current per capita is only 1.5 mu, only 1/4 of this standard.Although we have solved the food problem of the Chinese people by increasing the grain yield per unit area, we have paid several times or even dozens of times more hardships than Western countries with abundant arable land. Some scientists and scholars have discussed from many aspects, and believe that China's arable land resources are extremely limited, the ideal carrying population is 600-800 million, and the maximum carrying population is 1.6 billion.Our current population level has far exceeded the most suitable population carrying capacity, and if we do not continue to strictly control the population, once the maximum population carrying capacity is exceeded, the contradiction between man and land will become more prominent, and the Chinese will not only face the problem of food shortage Embarrassing, the survival and development of the Chinese nation will also face a huge crisis.

According to experts' calculations, at the end of the Warring States period, my country's total grain output was 9.135 billion kilograms, which increased to 113.18 billion kilograms in 1949. During this period, the total grain output increased by 12 times, while the population increased by 27 times during the same period. Therefore, by 1949 In 2010, my country's per capita grain possession was only 209 kilograms, which was less than half of the 460.5 kilograms per capita grain possession at the end of the Warring States Period.After liberation, my country vigorously developed grain production, and both the total grain output and the yield per unit area have increased significantly. In 1949, China’s average grain yield per mu was only 85.5 kilograms. By 1952, it was only 88 kilograms. By 1988, it rose to 238.5 kilograms. In 1994, it reached 271 kilograms. In 1997, it reached 300 kilograms, a net increase of 215.5 kilograms, an increase of 3.5. The total grain output increased from 113.18 billion kilograms in 1949 to 492.5 billion kilograms in 1997, an increase of 4.35 times.

To our embarrassment, during these 48 years, my country's population has also increased from 540 million to the current 1.236 billion. Dividing by this huge denominator, the result is that my country's per capita grain possession is still only 398 kilograms.This means that after thousands of years of hard work, our current per capita food possession level is less than the ancient era of slash-and-burn farming in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Periods. Judging from the situation in the world, the same is true that the growth of food cannot keep up with the growth of population, and this trend will become more and more severe.

After the end of the Second World War, with the emergence of world peace and the improvement of agricultural production technology, the world's food production increased year by year, especially after entering the 1980s, due to the widespread use of mechanization, application of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, improved water management, Food production continues to increase through methods such as improved animal and plant varieties and increased farmers' technical expertise.However, the increase in grain output does not mean that the grain supply is abundant. On the contrary, due to the rapid growth of the population, the grain supply has become extremely tense.The world's grain stocks have been decreasing year by year since 1994.Among them, wheat inventories have fallen to the lowest level in 1980-1981.

Brown, who has been devoted to the study of food issues, believes that the world's food production has reached a very high level, and it will be very difficult to continue to grow, and even the price of sacrificing the environment will be paid; the larger the population base, the faster the proliferation, Therefore, in the years to come, the world's food production will hardly increase significantly, but the population will continue to expand, which may lead to a situation of "food insecurity".Brown has investigated and analyzed world population growth, food production, aquatic products, and economic growth since the 1950s, and then made a development forecast until 2030, revealing the general situation of "food insecurity".

First, from 1950 to 1990, the world's population increased from 2.5 billion to 5.3 billion, a net increase of 2.8 billion in 40 years, an average annual increase of 70 million, and a growth rate of 1.9%, which is extremely rapid.After entering the 1990s, even if the population growth rate is greatly reduced, there will still be a relatively large increase due to the large population base.According to Brown's calculation at a growth rate of 1.3%, it is estimated that from 1990 to 2030, the world population will increase from 5.3 billion to 8.9 billion, with a net increase of 3.6 billion in 40 years and an average annual increase of 90 million.The contradiction between the lower growth rate and the higher growth rate will continue to expand the population, which will exacerbate the imbalance between population and food, making it difficult to reverse the downward trend of per capita food production. Second, the world's grain production increased from 631 million tons to 1.78 billion tons from 1950 to 1990, with an average annual increase of 29 million tons and an average annual growth rate of 2.6%. From this point of view, it exceeded the population growth rate by 0.7 percentage points. increase in production.However, a detailed analysis shows that after entering the 1980s, the grain growth has been decreasing year by year. From 1950 to 1984, the average annual increase of grain output was 2.9%, which increased the world's per capita grain output by 40%. From 1984 to 1993, the average annual increase of grain output was only 0.5%, which was much behind the population growth rate, resulting in a 11% decline in the world's per capita grain output. .If the growth rate continues at this rate for the next 40 years, that is, an annual increase of 12 million tons of grain, the world's per capita grain output will drop from the peak of 346 kg in 1984 to 248 kg in 2030, falling back to the level of 40 years ago. Third, the basic reason for the increase in grain production in the past 40 years is the application of fertilizers, especially chemical fertilizers, the promotion of improved varieties and the expansion of irrigated areas.Now, the amount of grain growth brought about by the application of chemical fertilizers has changed greatly: the growth ratio of grain and chemical fertilizers expressed by the amount of grain growth brought by every additional 1 ton of chemical fertilizers was 9.1 from 1950 to 1984, and decreased from 1984 to 1989 to 1.8.In addition, the revolution of improved varieties of major crops such as wheat, rice, and corn has basically come to an end. If new varieties with wide popularization value cannot be developed, the increase in grain production will be quite limited.While it makes sense to hope for bioengineering, so far, its efficacy has been mainly manifested in enhancing crop resistance to pests and diseases. Fourth, from the perspective of the agricultural environment, the large-scale application of chemical fertilizers and the large increase in irrigation before 1984 aggravated waterlogging, soil salinization, soil erosion and pollution. If chemical fertilizers and irrigation cannot maintain a corresponding growth trend, the side effects will be severe. increasingly evident.The diminishing effect of land fertility has led to a sharp decline in the growth rate of grain and chemical fertilizers, while the newly reclaimed farmland is limited by the extremely limited reserve arable land resources, and the world's arable land area is threatened by accelerated industrialization.Insufficient fresh water has become a worldwide problem, especially in major food producing countries. Brown's analysis and forecast are obviously too pessimistic. The biggest problem is that he looks at future development with a static eye, especially ignoring the role of future agricultural new technologies in increasing grain production.Therefore, his assertion that there will be little growth in future food production is untenable.However, it is very reasonable for him to consider population growth and grain production together.The current facts have basically proved the trend that the growth rate of food production in the future will be lower than the growth rate of population.