As an important input in the prevention and control of crop diseases and insect pests, ensuring national food security and the effective supply of agricultural products, pesticides have played an important and irreplaceable role in the continuous increase of grain on the mainland for many years. However, the unscientific and irrational use of pesticides has also brought negative problems such as crop drug pests, disease and insect resistance, pesticide residues exceeding standards, and environmental pollution. In order to effectively control the total amount of pesticide use in crops and ensure the safety of agricultural production, the quality of agricultural products and the safety of the ecological environment, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (formerly the Ministry of Agriculture) proposed the "Action Plan for Zero Growth of Pesticide Use by 2020" during the "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan" period, and organized the zero growth of pesticide use, which has generated great repercussions throughout the country. After 5 years of efforts, the work of reducing the amount and increasing the efficiency of pesticides has achieved remarkable results. In the first year of the "Fourteenth Five-Year Plan", the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs innovatively proposed the organic unification of "insects and grain" to ensure a bumper harvest and pesticide reduction, accelerate the promotion of green prevention and control products and technologies, continue to promote pesticide reduction, and ensure the safety of the people's table.
1 Results of the Zero Growth Initiative for Pesticides
2020 is the end of the zero growth action of pesticide use, and the use of pesticides in the production of the planting industry has achieved negative growth for 5 consecutive years, making positive contributions to ensuring the safety of agricultural production, the quality of agricultural products and the safety of the ecological environment.
1.1 The use of pesticides has decreased significantly, and the amount of pesticides has increased negatively for five consecutive years
According to statistics, from 2010 to 2020, the amount of pesticides used in the national planting industry (discounted into 100%, the same below) dropped from an average of 299,800 tons per year during the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan" period to an average of 270,300 tons during the "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan" period, a decrease of 9.84% (Figure 1 to Figure 4). Exceeded the target of zero growth in pesticide use. The use of pesticides in Beijing, Zhejiang, Anhui, Shandong, Henan, Hunan, Hainan, Guizhou, Yunnan, Gansu, Ningxia and other provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government) has declined for five consecutive years, and the use reduction of Shandong, Jiangsu, Sichuan, Hunan, Liaoning, Guizhou, Yunnan, Anhui, Guangxi and Henan provinces ranked in the top 10. Most of the above provinces are provinces with a large area of crop sowing, occurrence of diseases and insect pests and control areas, which have made great contributions to the zero growth of pesticide use in the country.
Figure 1 2010-2020 Agricultural Pesticides Use DiscountEd Percentage
Figure 2 2 2010-2020 national pesticide discount 100%.
Figure 3 2010-2020 national pesticide fungicide discount 100%.
Figure 4 2010-2020 national pesticide herbicide discount 100%.
1.2 Pesticide varieties continue to be optimized, and the proportion of new and efficient pesticides has increased
According to statistics, during the "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan" period, the use of highly toxic pesticides decreased from 0.74 million tons in 2015 to 0.26 million tons in 2020, a decrease of 66.7%, and the proportion in 2020 fell to less than 1%. The national plant protection system carries out experiments on new pesticide varieties, new dosage forms and new auxiliaries every year, establishes demonstration areas, and screens out a number of environment-friendly green pesticides to replace old and resistant pesticides. Biopesticides have been growing positively for five consecutive years, with annual commodity consumption reaching more than 80,000 tons, an increase of 18% compared with the end of 2015. New pesticide varieties such as biamide insecticides, neonicotinoid insecticides, methoxyacrylate fungicides, and parahydroxyphenylpyruvate dioxidase (HPPD) herbicides have high activity, the use of mu active ingredients is small, and the proportion of use is increasing year by year, which has made great contributions to the reduction of pesticides (Figures 5 to 8).
Figure 5 2010-2020 national organophosphorus pesticides discounted hundreds of use
Figure 6 2010-2020 national carbamate pesticide discounted amount
Figure 7 2010-2020 national diamide pesticides discounted hundred use
Figure 8 2010-2020 national neonicotinoid pesticides are used at a discount
1.3 The utilization rate of pesticides has been greatly improved, and the use of pesticides has become more scientific and reasonable
It is estimated that during the "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan" period, the pesticide utilization rate of the three major crops of rice, wheat and corn in the country increased from 36.6% in 2015 to 40.6% in 2020, an increase of 4 percentage points. The pesticide utilization rates of rice, wheat and corn were 41.10%, 40.16% and 40.75% respectively. Scientific and safe drug use public welfare training to achieve full coverage of the country, with the new agricultural production and operation entities, specialized prevention and control organizations as the focus, organize the organization of scientific and safe drug use lecture hall and other activities, popularize pesticide laws and regulations, scientific drug knowledge, promote new products and new technologies, in 5 years to carry out about 150,000 offline training, more than 12.2 million training personnel, the distribution of more than 15 million training materials, pesticide use zero growth action, pesticide reduction and efficiency, green prevention and control of crop diseases and insect pests deeply rooted in the hearts of the people (Figure 9).
Figure 9 Pesticide utilization rate trend of rice, wheat and corn from 2015 to 2020
1.4 The unified prevention and control and green prevention and control have accelerated their development, and the amount of biopesticides used has increased against the trend
From the perspective of specialized prevention and control, during the "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan" period, the professional services for the unified prevention and control of crop diseases and insect pests flourished, the area of specialized prevention and control services for wheat, rice and corn reached 106 million hm2 times, the number of specialized unified prevention and control service organizations nationwide reached 93,000, and the coverage rate of the three major grain crop disease and pest control reached 41.9%, an increase of 8.9 percentage points over 2015, reducing farmers' self-spraying, and improving the utilization rate of pesticides and the efficiency of prevention and control. From the perspective of green prevention and control, vigorously promote green prevention and control and precise scientific drug use, timely and accurately predict the disease and insect conditions, promote efficient plant protection medicine and equipment, and promote standard prevention and control, symptomatic medication, and timely and appropriate medication. In 2020, the green prevention and control area was nearly 66.67 million hm2, and the green prevention and control coverage rate of major crop diseases and insect pests was 41.5%, an increase of 18.5 percentage points over 2015 (Table 1).
Table 1 The development of specialized unified defense rule in China from 2010 to 2020
1.5 Disaster prevention and mitigation has made remarkable contributions and effectively guaranteed the safe production of agriculture
During the "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan" period, the outbreak of major diseases and insect pests such as rice "two migrations", rice blast, stripe rust, and flying locusts was effectively controlled, especially from 2019 to 2020, the invasion of the grassland moth was successfully dealt with for two consecutive years, and the occurrence area was controlled below 1.3333 million hm, controlling the momentum of its outbreak. According to the survey statistics of the National Agricultural Technology Extension Service Center, during the "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan" period, the average annual occurrence area of crop diseases and insect pests in the country was 423.0 million hm, a decrease of 11.52% compared with the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan"; the average annual prevention and control area was 525.9 million hm2 22 times, and the average annual grain loss was 87.2808 million tons, accounting for 13.17% of the total grain production in the country, effectively reducing the overall loss of diseases and insect pests.
2 Main approach
The zero growth action of pesticide use is a major event to lay the foundation, benefit the long term and benefit future generations, with great responsibility and heavy tasks, which has been highly concerned by all sectors of society. In the past 5 years, agricultural authorities at all levels and plant protection technology departments have closely focused on the main line of work of agricultural supply-side structural reform, conscientiously implemented the concept of green and high-quality development of agriculture, carried out the promotion of reduction technology with "control, substitution, refinement and unification" as the core, and unremittingly promoted the "zero growth action of pesticide use" to contribute to increasing grain production and income, agricultural product quality safety and green water and green mountains.
2.1 Strengthen organizational leadership and promote green prevention and control technologies for crop diseases and insect pests
2.1.1 Policy Launch
In order to promote the zero growth action of pesticide use, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs has formulated the "Implementation Plan for the Zero Growth Action of Pesticide Use by 2020", which puts forward phased goals, tasks and work requirements, strengthens administrative promotion, grasps the implementation of work at all levels, organizes technical guidance and inspection supervision, and ensures that the zero growth of pesticide use is solidly and effectively promoted. All 31 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government) have incorporated the zero growth action of pesticide use into the performance of the government, rural revitalization and other agricultural work management performance, giving full play to the role of the baton of performance appraisal to ensure the smooth progress of the "zero growth" action.
2.1.2 Financial support
Make full use of government, scientific research, experimental demonstration and other project funds, increase policy support for the experimental demonstration and application promotion of green prevention and control technologies, professional unified prevention and governance organizations, and training of new vocational farmers, promote the integration process of green prevention and control of diseases and insect pests and professional unified prevention and control, and improve the application level of green prevention and control technologies. In the past five years, the national financial investment at all levels has been about 10 billion yuan to support the zero growth action of pesticide use, and 99,000 demonstration bases of various types have been established, with a cumulative demonstration area of 76.67 million hm2, which has effectively guaranteed the development of the zero growth action of total pesticide use.
2.1.3 Technology-driven
The national plant protection system has carried out more than 2,200 (times) new pesticide varieties, new dosage forms, new auxiliaries and plant protection unmanned aerial vehicles and other new plant protection machinery test demonstrations, established 44,700 demonstration areas for new products and new technologies, and demonstrated the area of pesticide reduction and efficiency improvement nearly 46.67 million hm2 times. In particular, the screening tests of biological pesticides, plant immune inducers, plant health products, spray auxiliaries, and nano-pesticides have been increased, a number of environmentally friendly green pesticides have been screened to replace old and resistant pesticides, and a number of high-efficiency, low-toxicity, low-residue new pesticides, new dosage forms, new auxiliaries and scientific environmental protection use technologies have been promoted. Promote the specialization of unified pest prevention and control, the integration of green prevention and control, the scientific use of safe drugs, and the model of cooperation between agricultural enterprises.
2.2 Strengthen the direction of guidance and promote the precision application of modern and efficient plant protection machinery
Actively develop and promote the application of modern and efficient plant protection machinery, improve pesticide atomization and settlement, and reduce the waste of operations such as "running and dripping". In the past five years, the country has established a total of 28,000 demonstration bases for agricultural enterprises, with 662,000 large and medium-sized pharmaceutical equipment, 334,000 self-propelled sprayers, more than 170,000 plant protection drones, and an average annual pest control area of 66.67 million hm2 times.
2.2.1 Organize test demonstrations of new plant protection machinery
Large and medium-sized high-efficiency applicators have the advantages of high pesticide utilization rate, strong spray targeting, good application uniformity and high operation efficiency. To adapt to the new requirements of new agricultural business entities and the new expectations of plant protection socialization service organizations, cooperate with relevant universities, scientific research units, and plant protection machinery enterprises, vigorously test and demonstrate the promotion of self-propelled spray rod sprayers, plant protection drones and other large and medium-sized high-efficiency pesticide application machinery, strengthen the combination of agricultural machinery and agronomy, and vigorously promote the application of efficient plant protection machinery. It has been calculated that under the premise of ensuring the prevention effect, the amount of spraying liquid per unit area of the demonstration area can be reduced by 2/3 compared with the use of drugs per household, and the work efficiency is increased by nearly 1 times.
2.2.2 Organize observation and display of new plant protection machinery and technical training
Jointly with new plant protection machinery enterprises, hold new high-efficiency pesticide application machinery observation and display and use of technology training activities, and promote the promotion and application of special high-efficiency pesticide application machinery. In cooperation with the National Innovation Alliance and plant protection machinery enterprises, with the help of the China Plant Protection "Double Fair" platform, focus on publicizing and displaying new plant protection machinery, in 2020 alone, we organized more than 4,000 training sessions of plant protection machinery use and maintenance technology, and trained more than 200,000 people.
2.3 Comply with market demand and promote the in-depth development of unified defense and rule services
In order to solve the problem of disease prevention and insect treatment for each household, we will vigorously support the development of socialized service organizations, promote professional unified prevention and control, and guide the diversified and vigorous development of plant protection socialized service organizations. By the end of 2020, the number of specialized service organizations nationwide reached 92,573, the number of "five haves" normative organizations filed in the agricultural sector reached 40,621, the number of employees was 1.267 million, and the daily operation capacity reached 8.078 million hm2. The area of specialized unified prevention and control of the three major grain crops reached 106 million hm2 times, and the coverage rate of specialized unified prevention and control reached 41.9%.
2.3.1 The service mode is constantly improving
From the previous generation of prevention and treatment, it has gradually changed to a contracted service for the prevention and control of diseases and insect pests in the whole growth period of crops, and from a local service to an inter-regional service. At the same time, the service chain is gradually extended, from a single pest control to a whole production service such as farming, pest control, water and fertilizer management, and machine harvesting.
2.3.2 The content of the Services is rich and varied
The prevention and control service organization has changed from a single chemical prevention and control organization in the past to the comprehensive use of green prevention and control technology to promote the integration of unified prevention and control and green prevention and control. In the process of carrying out pest and disease prevention and control, specialized prevention and control organizations actively promote green prevention and control measures such as lamp attraction, color attraction, sexual attraction, biological control and ecological control, and rationally select high-efficiency, low-toxicity and low-residue chemical pesticides to effectively reduce the use of chemical pesticides.
2.3.3 Comprehensive upgrade of service supervision
Since 2019, the work of identifying star service organizations for unified prevention and rule has been carried out, and a total of 555 star service organizations have been identified as unified defense and rule, which has effectively promoted the prevention and control organizations to become bigger and stronger, and guided professional prevention and control organizations to continuously improve the level of standardized management. The Regulations on the Prevention and Control of Crop Diseases and Insect Pests, which was officially promulgated and implemented in 2020, also includes specialized pest control services, and the supervision of service organizations will be comprehensively upgraded.
2.4 Strengthen harmless treatment and promote the resource utilization of pesticide packaging waste
The recycling and treatment of pesticide packaging waste has been assigned to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs for a relatively short time, and in order to implement the strategic layout of ecological environmental protection and the concept of green development of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, the governance idea of "strengthening publicity, source treatment, and demonstration first" has been adopted.
2.4.1 Strengthen publicity and training to enhance recycling awareness
After the promulgation of the "Measures for the Management of The Recycling and Treatment of Pesticide Packaging Waste", we will actively organize various localities to carry out publicity and study and training on laws and regulations, and in 2020, with the help of radio and television, banners, publicity coloring pages, new media and other forms, explain in detail the recycling requirements, recycling processes and other contents, guide the masses to actively participate in recycling work, and create a good social atmosphere.
2.4.2 Strengthen source control and reduce the number of packages
Actively promote the use of green prevention and control and specialized prevention and control of pests and diseases, strengthen scientific drug guidance and training, and reduce the amount of pesticide use and packaging waste. By linking pesticide production enterprises with grass-roots agricultural technology extension departments and new agricultural business entities, we actively promote the use of large-scale packaging pesticides, reducing the amount of packaging waste from the source.
2.4.3 Take multiple measures at the same time to explore the harmless treatment of packaging
The demonstration first explored the establishment of a simple cleaning station for pesticide bottles, integrated the precise configuration of pesticides, packaging waste cleaning and recycling, residual liquid harmless treatment and other technologies, through classification, cleaning, granulation and other processes to make packaging waste into sewer pipes, septic tanks, pesticide bottles, etc., to achieve the resource utilization of packaging waste.
3 Sectors where the zero growth of pesticide use needs to be further strengthened
3.1 Strengthen financial and project support
During the "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan" period, there were many research projects set up at the national level, but no pesticide reduction technology projects were set up specifically for the promotion and application, and there was also a lack of special financial support, resulting in the pesticide reduction technology being mainly decentralized technology, lacking systematic measures and mature technical solutions. Due to the lack of financial support, there are also certain restrictions on the popularization and promotion of technology, and the participation of farmers is not high.
3.2 Increase the popularization and promotion of scientific drugs
Pesticide users strictly implement the awareness of scientific drug use is not strong, do not use drugs according to the label, use beyond the scope, abuse, indiscriminate use of pesticides still exist, resulting in the rapid growth of insect resistance, causing a greater impact on the pesticide industry, it is necessary to further increase the publicity and popularization of scientific drugs. At the same time, in terms of pesticide reduction evaluation, pesticide use investigation and statistical measurement methods, pesticide utilization rate assessment methods, and pesticide reduction effect evaluation need to be further optimized.
3.3 Further expand the scope of professional unified defense rule
During the "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan" period, the coverage rate of the three major grain crops in unified prevention and control exceeded 40%, but there is still a large room for improvement. For example, the problem of agricultural machinery agronomic integration is prominent, and the traditional planting mode makes it difficult for large-scale ground pesticide application machinery to enter the field, hindering the process of plant protection mechanization, and in the future, we will focus on promoting the agricultural machinery agronomic integration technology model and expanding the scope of use of efficient plant protection machinery. At the same time, although the plant protection UAV has been widely used nationwide, there are still shortcomings in standardized and standardized operations, especially in the late stage of crop growth, and the poor effect of the UAV in controlling diseases and insect pests in the lower part of the crop is an urgent technical problem to be solved in the future.
4 Recommendations for countermeasures to reduce pesticide use
Zero growth in pesticide use is not equal to zero use of pesticides, and pesticide reduction is not simply the reduction of the total amount of use, but under the premise of ensuring food security, try to use pesticides scientifically, rationally and safely, replace high-toxicity and high-residue pesticides with high-efficiency and low-risk pesticides, and replace traditional decentralized and inefficient methods with new and efficient plant protection machinery, unified prevention and control and green prevention and control technologies, so as to achieve reasonable reduction in pesticide use and structural optimization and upgrading, and ensure sustainable agricultural development and agricultural product quality and safety.
4.1 Enrich the connotation of pesticide reduction
From the perspective of national food security, for a long time in the future, the mainland plant protection disaster prevention and mitigation will also rely on pesticides, including chemical pesticides. We should guide local areas to choose high-efficiency chemical pesticides and biological pesticides when increasing the use of pesticides due to objective factors such as the sudden recurrence of pests and diseases, and guide all localities to carry out physical and chemical inducement control, biological control and scientific drug use under the premise of cost control and scientific management. The pesticide reduction evaluation system also explores the objective reality of large countries, small farmers, and high multiple seed indexes, from a single assessment of the total amount of pesticide use to a multi-factor, multi-index, and hierarchical comprehensive evaluation system, such as the assessment of crop unit area dosage, biochemical drug structure, high-efficiency and low-toxicity pesticide proportion changes, respectively, to grain, horticulture, vegetables and other situations to eliminate the use of highly toxic pesticides.
4.2 Strengthen scientific and technological innovation and application
Strengthen the publicity and implementation of the "Regulations on the Prevention and Control of Crop Diseases and Insect Pests", advocate green prevention and control of diseases and insect pests, and increase the proportion of biological pesticides in the total use of pesticides. Promote the cooperation between agricultural science and education enterprises, take the solution of practical production problems as the guide, and develop more and better green prevention and control technology materialization products. Through the docking of agricultural enterprises, the integration of mature replicable, scalable, light and simple, farmers are willing to accept the green and efficient technology model, increase the number of demonstrations and promotions, and give full play to the comprehensive effect of technology. Jointly with teaching and scientific research institutions, pesticide equipment production enterprises and industry associations, organize the development and innovation and experimental demonstration of green pesticide products, efficient plant protection machinery, new pesticide application technologies, etc., and accelerate the promotion and application of pesticide reduction technologies and achievements.
4.3 Increase public welfare training in scientific drug use
Joint scientific research and teaching units, through multiple channels and means, objectively publicize the irreplaceable role played by pesticides in ensuring food security to the public, and objectively evaluate the importance of the correct use of pesticides. Actively carry out scientific and safe drug use knowledge training, so that large planters engaged in agricultural production, plant protection teams and small farmers are familiar with scientific drug use can not only improve the effect of pesticide disease prevention and insect treatment, but also save costs. Guide farmers to select target-to-road agents based on disease and pest intelligence and disease and pest resistance monitoring reports, do not blindly use drugs, chaotically dispense, and resolutely resist large prescriptions and black prescriptions. Strengthen the investigation and handling of illegal use of illegal pesticides, peddling fake pesticides and other illegal acts, and create a good sales environment for regular pesticides.
The book "Silent Spring" has been published for nearly 60 years, and the world continues to use pesticides, and there is no tragic scene described in the book, which fully shows that human beings have won the process of using pesticides to seek benefits and avoid harms. Therefore, we should objectively face the problem of pesticide use, cannot deny the merits of pesticides, and actively view the development and progress of pesticides. With the promulgation and implementation of the "Regulations on the Prevention and Control of Crop Diseases and Insect Pests", the concept of green development continues to develop in depth and breadth, national food security and the quality and safety of agricultural products are more deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, the use of pesticides will be further optimized in the future, and the scientificity and safety will also be steadily improved, and continue to contribute to agricultural modernization.
Source: China Plant Protection Guide, No. 11, 2021
Author: National Agricultural Technology Extension Service Center Qin Meng, Ren Zongjie, Zhang Shuai, Wang Fengle, Zhao Qing, Li Yongping, Guo Yongwang*
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