Search

Conservation tillage is a technology regarding sustainable agricultural development, which features less or no tillage and crop stubble covering and has brought significant economic, environmental, and social benefits to China’s agricultural production. As agricultural production in China develops toward the directions of large scale, high efficiency, and intelligence, promoting the development of conservation tillage becomes conducive to cultivated land protection, grain supply security, and agricultural technology improvement. This study reviews the development process of conservation tillage in China from the aspects of research and development of conservation tillage technologies and equipment, demonstration and ability construction, and utilization of black soil in Northeast China. It also summarizes the development status of conservation tillage technologies and equipment in China, involving representative technical models and key machines for surface straw and stubble treatment, shallow soil tillage, and no- or less-tillage sowing. The major factors that affect the development of conservation tillage in China are analyzed, including suitable model and equipment, support of laws and policies, and drive of large-scale planting households. Furthermore, suggestions are proposed to promote the rapid and stable development of conservation tillage in China. First, a national science and technology innovation platform should be built and high-standard demonstration projects should be implemented by counties. Second, national action plans on conservation tillage should be implemented to strengthen policy guidance. Third, publicity of conservation tillage should be further strengthened.

The mode transformation of agricultural production is a common concern for China and worldwide. Currently, the level of mechanization has been significantly promoted for the agriculture sector in China and smart production becomes an inevitable trend for modern agriculture. Smart agriculture regards data, knowledge, and intelligent equipment as the core elements and integrates modern science and technology with agriculture to realize digital perception, intelligent decision-making, precise operation, and smart management in the entire process of agricultural production, thereby greatly improving labor productivity, resource utilization rate, and land output rate. This article presents the current status of agricultural production in China using rice production as an example, and analyzes the necessity, opportunities, challenges, directions, and route for the intelligent transformation of China’s agriculture. Furthermore, we propose policy suggestions to promote the intelligent development of China’s agricultural production, including (1) strengthening the research and innovation system for agricultural machinery, (2) improving the agricultural machinery promotion system, (3) optimizing the socialized service system for agricultural machinery, and (4) accelerating the construction of smart agriculture demonstration zones.

China now grows about 1.5 million hectares of sugarcane and is the third largest sugar producer in the world. Almost all of that cane is still harvested by hand belabor in countryside areas has become more expensive and difficult to recruit. While the sugar mills prefer to crush the cleaner cane that manual harvesting delivers, some mills in areas where mechanical harvesting capacity has increased in recent years, have imposed restrictions on the quantity of machine cut cane that can be delivered each day. In the longer term, it is inevitable that the mills will have to accept a greater proportion of machine harvested cane. It is therefore important that an institutional structure and operating rules to control the harvesting sector be developed as the transformation from manual to mechanized harvesting takes place in China to achieve the best possible outcome for the sugar industry. Australia was the pioneering country that developed mechanized sugarcane harvesting but most of the organizational arrangements for mechanical harvesting of sugarcane were adapted from the manual cutting system that preceded mechanization. The cane payment system in Australia partly acknowledges the respective capital shares involved in the independent farms supplying cane and the mills which process it, and attempts to share revenue from sugar sales roughly in proportion to their respective historical capital investments. When mechanical cane harvesting was introduced into the Australian industry, there was no attempt to recognize the capital investment of harvester operators as part of the whole supply chain. They have always been paid on a contract basis ($x per ton of cane harvested) which does not align the incentives for the harvester operator with the rest of the industry. The paper describes the Australian way of organizing cane harvesting and some international systems of cane payment and so that each farmer shares equitably in the proceeds of sugar sales. These payment systems all exclude harvester operators from taking a share of industry revenue. Some suggestions that might help the Chinese industry avoid similar problems are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sugarcane is an important cash crop in southern China now planted on about 1.5 million ha in the main production areas in Guangxi, Zhuang Autonomous Region and Yunnan, Guangdong, and Hainan Provinces. Since the cost of labor in China is increasing rapidly and the price of local sugar is uncompetitive with the product from mechanized international producers, China needs to change its sugarcane production methods from manual work to mechanization in order to catch up with international trends in this global industry. Although a lot of effort in China have gone into sugarcane mechanization since the 1960s, the overall level of mechanization in sugarcane production is still only approximately 30%, which is about 20% lower than that achieved in the other main field crops. Almost all of the sugarcane grown in China is still harvested by hand. In order to summarize past experience and promote the mechanization of sugarcane production in China, this paper reviews the whole process of developing mechanization since 1 960s and describes the current state of sugarcane mechanization in China. The research currently being undertaken and the main obstacles to be overcome in developing a mechanized sugarcane production system, are described. The design and testing of sugarcane harvesting machinery and its key components has been a significant research area by some Chinese universities, research institutes, and manufacturing companies in these past decades. This paper reviews that research and outlines the main achievements which have been made in this area. Mechanized harvesting systems for sugarcane, and the appropriate harvesting patterns suitable for different growing conditions applying in China, have also been studied. The paper concludes with some comments on the future directions for progress in China's mechanization of sugarcane production and some policy suggestions to facilitate the industry's transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]