"Livestock to the south, birds to the north", a wonderful game of resources and ecology?

Introduction: since 2006, Wang Qiang's identity has changed from a chicken farm owner to an insurance salesman, who has been calling potential customers every day After a long time, Wang Qiang was a bit bored "In fact, I still like to raise chickens!" On July 5, Wang Qiang told China economic times Wang Qiang has been engaged in breeding for some years In the most glorious time, the stall was quite large: his hometown, Hengshui, Hebei Province, has a breeding farm of more than 5 mu, which has raised more than 70 dogs, 20 sheep and 800 chickens; Miaofeng Mountain, Beijing, has 13 mu, which has raised 15000 chickens at most Miaofengshan alone made 110000 yuan in 2005 It is worth mentioning that from April to October of 2005, Wang Qiang made a bold exploration of breeding chicken in Inner Mongolia grassland, which ended with "temporary failure", and his previous accumulation also made up a lot of money "It's not a technical or economic issue, it's a relationship between several partners that hasn't been dealt with properly." Wang Qiang said Because of this, Wang Qiang is eager and believes that he can make a comeback to the grassland to raise chickens These days, he is in contact with Dr Li Yonggeng of the Institute of Botany of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, hoping that Li can help solve part of the funding for his "comeback" "Our own research funds are very tight, and we can't afford to support Wang Qiang with more money." On July 18, Li Yonggeng told China economic times, "however, what Wang Qiang did was a very significant event." During Wang Qiang's chicken raising in Inner Mongolia, Li Yonggeng held the post of deputy technical leader in Zhenglan Banner, Inner Mongolia, where Wang Qiang's chicken farm is located He was very clear about Wang Qiang's affairs and helped Wang Qiang Compared with Li Yonggeng, Jiang Gaoming, chief researcher of Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, who has been engaged in grassland ecological protection and grassland restoration for a long time, has a deeper and more systematic view on grassland chicken breeding In Jiang Gaoming's theory of "livestock going south and poultry going north", grassland chicken raising is the part of "poultry going north" In short, "livestock south, poultry North" is to put cattle and sheep breeding in the Southern agricultural areas, poultry breeding moved to the northern pastoral areas, in order to achieve a more cost-effective and ecological more reasonable purpose For example, from the ecological point of view, "livestock goes south and birds go north", on the one hand, it can solve the problems of overgrazing and grassland ecological deterioration; on the other hand, it can transform agricultural straw into feed as much as possible, and at the same time, it can be effectively used to avoid environmental pollution caused by straw burning On June 22, 2006, Wang Yongchen, the head of Beijing green home, saw the report that "the blue sky in Beijing stops burning straw in Hebei Province", and told China economic times with great emotion, "if Jiang Gaoming's idea of exchanging livestock and poultry breeding land is successful, it's a wonderful game of resources and ecology, and it's a great good thing." "My idea is essentially the same as Yuan Longping's creation, which is to make the best use of the photosynthesis products that nature gives to human beings." On June 30, Jiang Gaoming told China economic times "Livestock south, poultry North" can solve the same problem as Wang Qiang, Jiang Gaoming also want to change money "The power of example is infinite." Jiang Gaoming told our reporter, "if I have money, I want to set up two points in the pastoral area and the agricultural area respectively, i.e raising chickens in the pastoral area, raising cattle in the agricultural area and comprehensive management Once it's done successfully, with demonstration effect, it's easy to promote it " Not long ago, at a seminar, Jiang Gaoming laid out the idea of "livestock going south and poultry going north" to the officials of relevant ministries and commissions present "They are interested, but I can understand that they can't afford to do experiments for a while due to various considerations So we have to find our own way In a word, scientists can't persuade people just by their mouths " But at the beginning, when I was looking for money, I had to rely on my lips Wang Yongchen expressed support for Jiang Gaoming On the last day of June 2006, together with Jiang Gaoming, she found Ford fund "grinds her lips", hoping to get financial support That day, after returning to his office, Jiang Gaoming repeated to reporters of the China economic times the reason they tried to persuade Ford Fund: there are 6 billion mu of Grasslands (typical grasslands, alpine grasslands, desertification grasslands, meadow grasslands, etc.) in China, accounting for 41% of the total land area The annual biomass of all grasslands is only about 300 million tons (dry weight), and the number of cattle and sheep accounts for one third of the country According to the law of ecology, only when about 10% of the grass (about 30 million tons) is consumed by herbivores can the grassland ecosystem be protected from degradation However, there is a problem in the current calculation of livestock carrying capacity, which is that more than 60% of the dry matter produced in grassland is eaten by livestock Over the years of overgrazing, 90% of China's grasslands have been degraded to varying degrees, which has become the source of sandstorms endangering the national ecological security At the same time, the country's 1.8 billion mu of farmland produces about 500 million tons of grain and more than 700 million tons of straw every year Of all the straws, 20% were used by animal husbandry, 1% by industry, 79% by waste or incineration (about 550 million tons, 18.33 times of the reasonable grass supply of grassland) These straws are good forages If they are eaten by cattle and sheep, and then returned to the field through manure or biogas residue, they can also increase the soil capacity In this way, the "ration" of more than 1 billion standard sheep units in China can be fully met only by straw Even when the national consumption level reaches the world average level (at present, the per capita consumption of animal protein of urban and rural residents in China is less than one third of the per capita consumption of the world, and the per capita consumption of milk is less than one quarter), the huge straw feed in agricultural areas can also be met "Due to the lack of grass and overgrazing, the vast grassland area in China has caused serious ecological degradation, which not only poses a great threat to the ecological security, but also restricts the sustainable development of local social economy; on the other hand, the burning of waste straw in the vast agricultural area not only causes the waste of precious grass resources, but also seriously pollutes the environment "Livestock moving south and poultry moving north" means that the livestock in the pastoral area will be transferred to the agricultural area with excessive straw, and the poultry in the agricultural area will be transferred to the grassland pastoral area for free feeding " Jiang Gaoming said Inadvertently, Wang Qiang became a practitioner of Jiang Gaoming's theory of "livestock going south, poultry going north" According to Jiang Gaoming, through the research on the experiment of raising chicken (Chaiji) in Wangqiang grassland, "it is completely feasible in practice." For Wang Qiang, to raise chickens in Inner Mongolia grassland is just to produce better quality chickens with less investment and earn more money "If it wasn't for the partnership, I could have done that." Wang Qiang told China economic times Wang Qiang's idea of going to the grassland to raise chickens has long been there Since 2001, he has been experimenting in a farm in Hebei Province to let chickens eat grass and worms, partially replacing feed In order to catch insects, he designed a device: put a lamp on a small pool, insects rush to the light, fall into the water and become chicken food "The experiment was a success After a period of time, it was obviously found that the chickens ate less feed and grew faster " After the Spring Festival in 2005, Wang Qiang and two other partners began to implement the grassland chicken breeding program The land was found by one of the partners, about 600 mu Each of the three paid 40000 yuan to build a chicken shed, buy chickens, buy fodder (two thirds of the chickens raised on the grassland are fodder), hire workers At the beginning of June, 16000 chickens were mobilized twice, and the chicken farm officially opened Because of the impact of bird flu, the chicken didn't make much money, and the conflict between partners, the experiment was a failure However, Wang Qiang insisted that he had mastered the technology of grassland chicken raising through this experiment, and the input and output were not a problem The successful growth of chickens has indicated that there is no technical problem; economically, Wang Qiang gave a rough calculation to the reporter of China Economic Times: compared with the chickens raised in the mainland, each chicken raised in the grassland will increase the transport cost of 0.3 yuan of chicks and 0.1 yuan of feed, but it can save 1 / 3 of feed consumption In total, the direct cost will be reduced by 2 to 3 yuan As the breeding cycle of grassland chicken should be longer, the labor cost and management cost should be increased correspondingly, and Cheng chicken is far away from the consumption area, sharing some transportation costs of dealers, so "compared with the mainland, the net profit of each chicken is almost the same finally." But because the cost of raising each chicken is lower and the unit capital can raise more chickens, it is still cheaper than raising in the mainland " Wang Qiang didn't compare the difference between raising cattle and sheep and raising chickens in the same area of grassland, but Li Yonggeng was clear about it On July 18, Li Yonggeng told the China Economic Times: if 500 mu grassland is used to raise cattle and sheep, the reasonable breeding amount should be 50 standard sheep units (i.e 50 sheep or 10 cattle) At present, the normal breeding capacity is twice the reasonable breeding amount, that is, 10 cattle (50 standard sheep units) plus 50 sheep According to this scale of cultivation, herdsmen can get a net profit of 15000 yuan per year; if they raise chickens, they can raise 10000 chickens (20 chickens per mu) on a 500 mu grassland If they earn a net profit of 5 yuan per chicken, they can get a total of 50000 yuan Here, 15000 yuan for raising cattle and sheep comes at the cost of over stocking and destroying the grassland Otherwise, 500 mu of land can only earn 7000 yuan According to Wang Qiang, there are more than 20 chickens in one mu of land, "100 are almost the same." Jiang Gaoming's calculation rule is: 50 chickens can be raised per mu of grassland, with an increase in income of 500 yuan, 100 times that of traditional cattle and sheep raising (at present, the output value of animal husbandry of degraded grassland is less than 5 yuan / mu) Li Yonggeng said that at present, the number of chickens raised in China is about 4.7 billion On average, if one chicken is raised on each mu of grassland, it will be enough to meet the national consumption needs Of course, this is just a theoretical assumption In practice, a natural village in the pastoral area usually has 100000 mu of grassland as an example As long as 1% or 1000 mu of grassland is used for raising chickens (without raising cattle and sheep), it can not only ensure that the income of herdsmen does not decrease, but also effectively alleviate the problem of high livestock capacity in the grassland "The damage of chicken raising to grassland ecology can be ignored." "However, it's better to turn the field once a year to ensure that the soil structure and biodiversity of the grassland can be restored by themselves," said Li Yonggeng "The quality of chickens raised on the grassland must be better." "At present, farmers have reduced the living space of chickens to a few to a dozen layers of wire cages, fed so-called additives to make them 'fast-growing', and shortened their physiological cycle from more than 200 days of free breeding to less than 45 days," Jiang said The chicken produced in this way is not even eaten by the chicken farmers themselves Breeding and abuse of feed additives against biological laws cause a lot of hidden dangers to national food and health safety The large amount of free living space needed for the healthy growth of birds is not in the farmyard in the mainland, not in the wire cage, but in the vast grassland " The necessity and feasibility of "livestock going south" as Wang Yongchen noted, "Beijing's 14 consecutive days of blue sky stop smoking straw" report said that