Wang Yanjing "Dancing with the grass" potatoes.
Healthy plants help end hunger, reduce poverty, protect the environment and boost economic development. Promoting the use of environmentally friendly ecological cultivation is essential to protect plant health. On International Plant Health Day on 12 May, FAO is calling on everyone to raise awareness and take action to keep our plants healthy. In this regard, UN News interviewed Wang Yanjing, who is engaged in ecological agriculture in Shandong Province, China, and asked him to introduce the practice and exploration of protecting biodiversity and restoring ecological balance in agricultural planting. Please listen to the report of special correspondent Du Jia.
Healthy plants are fundamental to life on Earth and key to sustainable agriculture and adequate food for a growing global population. More and more data show that in agricultural production methods, human beings have experienced a detour, relying on the use of fertilizers, pesticides, hormones, herbicides, etc. to maintain the so-called "high yield and efficiency". As a result, on the one hand, the quality and safety of agricultural products have decreased, and on the other hand, environmental pollution has continued to deteriorate. As a result, people began to explore the restoration of traditional green ecological agriculture.
In an interview with UN News, Shandong farmer Wang Yanjing first shared his original intention to engage in ecological planting.
Wang Yanjing: "Our local cancer hospital turned out to be the oncology department. Later the section became a floor, then a building. When we were young, adults wouldn't let us visit these patients' homes. Many diseases such as three highs, cancer, and diabetes broke out for a period of time, which coincided with the stage of using highly toxic and highly toxic pesticides in China at that time.
More than a decade ago, someone suddenly proposed this cultivation model without chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides. We felt promising, so we did it. I feel that it is meaningful to society, and for us personally, and can realize our own value. ”
Wang Yanjing Wang Yanjing (second from left) meets with experts from the Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Combining theory and practice
After Wang Yanjing founded the family farm, she consulted experts from the Institute of Botany of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and at the same time persistently practiced and explored, and found that the ecological organic planting model is far simpler and more effective than the planting model that uses a lot of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides.
Wang Yanjing: "The research of scholars is strategic, they are engaged in theory, and the theory is relatively strong; We're doing, two sides of the same coin. We first respect them and take the initiative to learn from these experts and scholars, such as our biological control and biological planting concepts are learned from experts. But if you use theory to farm, you will be very tired. Then we'll simplify it.
What we emphasize is that the health of the plant, first of all, its soil should be healthy and it should have more minerals. In addition, the right soil matches the right crops. We can't say that we can grow anything in our land, we have to test the soil for minerals. For example, the soil on the edge of Longevity Village has a relatively high content of beneficial minerals and few harmful minerals. But in places like the alluvial plain of the Yellow River, its minerals are balanced.
Due to the heavy use of chemical fertilizers, our soil is compacting, capillary roots are degrading, and we have to increase the amount of fertilizer in the soil to stabilize crop yields, which creates a vicious circle. For example, with ammonium bicarbonate, in the eighties, the normal growth of corn could be ensured from the initial use of a very small soup spoon; Now larger containers have had to be used, ammonium bicarbonate usage has increased tenfold, but corn production has not increased. ”
Wang Yanjing Late-sown wheat can be done without pesticides and herbicides.
Believe in the wisdom of nature
In terms of production mode, Wang Yanjing believes in the wisdom of nature and the "wisdom" of species, and introduces the power of nature into agricultural planting. In agricultural production, the sustainable practice of "neighborhood biodiversity conservation" is carried out, and the principle of "restoring nature with the power of nature and restoring ecology with the power of ecology" is carried out to carry out weed control, pest control, and increase soil nutrients, hoping to replace the thinking of "control and elimination" with the thinking of "symbiosis and coexistence".
Wang Yanjing pointed out that if herbicides are used to kill weeds around crops, this directly destroys the habitat of natural enemies of pests, so that various natural enemies lose their homes, and after the pests appear, they can only rely on medicine, and repeat such work every year until the agricultural ecosystem and human health collapse. The "chemical confrontation" has caused great harm to the health of farmers and consumers, as well as to the ecological environment.
Wang Yanjing: "There are two aspects to plant health: one is the soil, and the other is the production mode. We follow nature, imitate the state of wild and semi-wild, we use the "dance with grass" and "weeds around" model to simplify biological control, ensure biological or plant health, and obtain healthy food. Agroecology gives us the pleasure of eating. In addition to starch and protein, the food we eat is relatively high in minerals, eliminating invisible hunger and making people healthier. Therefore, a healthy plant is very important for healthy people and is the foundation for building social health.
We do not use herbicides, do not use pesticides, and use the localization of weeds to achieve plant diversity and promote biodiversity. I think we've been fighting weeds ever since we started farming. In fact, we found that weeds have a shading, moisturizing, and cooling effect. Weeds can resist drought, that is, we use weeds rationally instead of controlling and eliminating them, which is a problem that ecological agriculture must face.
In the process of practice, we found that if herbicides are not used, as the breeding conditions required by natural enemy insects, nectar source plants can rely on the localization and diversity of weeds from early spring to late autumn. If you use weeds well, you can do without pesticides. A healthy plant without weeds as companions, biological control must not do well.
Over the years, we have believed that pesticides, herbicides and artificial plant hormones have the greatest impact on plants and crop health. The so-called modern agriculture, which relies on technology, creates ecological imbalances. We advocate the localization of weeds, promote biodiversity through planting diversity, and achieve ecological balance. ”
Wang Yanjing Based on the concept of biodiversity conservation, peach trees managed by biological control are used.
Ecological planting benefits farmers
Although the ecological planting model adhered to by Wang Yanjing has not yet become the mainstream agricultural production method, he insists that agriculture should return to the basics, return to the traditional planting method of low-cost, green and ecological, and the biggest beneficiary of ecological agriculture is also farmers.
Wang Yanjing: "Ecological agriculture saves the farmers themselves, because when farmers use pesticides and herbicides, the first thing that farmers damage is their own health. So now farming is the most dangerous profession - there is no one. Ecological agriculture no longer uses pesticides, herbicides and other technologies, and this environmentally friendly model can make cultivators healthier. ”
The above is a report by Du Jia, a special correspondent for UN News.