Agricultural Cultural Heritage and Agricultural Sustainable Development —— Taking Fish Culture in Paddy Fields as an Example
Xu
First of all, environmental problems have a long history.
With the development of western industrialization in the 20th century, agricultural industrialization has also become the main theme. Since the 1970s, the developed countries have rapidly developed modern agriculture armed with oil and characterized by mechanization, chemicalization and energy utilization, and achieved great benefits. Although machinery, fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides are widely used, land productivity and labor productivity have been improved, and the food demand brought about by the rapid population expansion has been met. However, a series of adverse consequences are shocking, such as environmental pollution, soil erosion, ecological destruction, simplification of animal and plant varieties, loss of germplasm resources and so on. Increasing the application of chemical fertilizers and pesticides will not only pollute the soil environment and crops, but also enrich into the human body and affect people's health. Excessive dependence on synthetic substances produced by modern technology makes it difficult for the earth to purify itself and the soil to digest, especially exceeding the self-repair threshold of water in rivers, making pollution everywhere. Genetic engineering introduces foreign genes into corn, soybean, cotton, rice and other crops to make them resistant to insects and weeds, which seems to solve the problem of pesticide pollution once and for all, but what negative effects it will bring after long-term large-scale promotion is unpredictable. The harm of DDT residue was discovered after decades of widespread use. Today, after decades of stopping production and use, the problem still exists. Therefore, developed countries have taken actions to seek a way out for sustainable development. As a big agricultural country, China's population growth, environmental deterioration, resource shortage and other issues are becoming increasingly serious. The issue of sustainability needs people's attention in particular.
In fact, as early as 1962, American Carson stated a terrible reality that Silent Spring came out. Although the phenomenon pointed out by Carson is not entirely caused by agriculture, agriculture should occupy its main component. Later, the "Human Environment Conference" held in 1972 adopted the "Declaration on Human Environment" and put forward the famous assertion that "there is only one earth".
Earlier, in the United States, the serious decline of soil fertility in the early19th century prompted the American government to find a solution. From the beginning of18th century, the British cultivated land and cut down forests in America. After independence, the United States inherited the characteristics of extensive agricultural management in medieval Europe, which was aggravated by the contradiction between the lack of labor and the infinite richness of land. Farmers blindly cultivate and harvest, thinking that the arable soil is endless, and they simply don't care how to maintain soil fertility. As Thomas Jefferson said, "People are reluctant to fertilize because it is cheaper to buy an acre of new land than to fertilize it" [1]. Because of the low population base at that time, the contradiction between agriculture, especially land resources, resource utilization and environmental protection was not prominent. However, at the beginning of the 20th century, less than 100 years after the independence of the United States, serious soil erosion caused by vegetation destruction and soil fertility decline caused by improper land use and farming appeared, and the American government had to seek solutions to this problem everywhere. They are concerned that the population density of China is much higher than that of the United States, but the problem of sustainability is not so serious. So in 1909, the federal government sent Franklin hiram King, a soil scientist, to China to find the valuable experience of traditional agriculture. With the keen eye of an agricultural soil scientist, Jin made a serious investigation and study on agriculture and rural areas in China from macro and micro levels. After returning to China, he wrote Farmers in the Fortieth Century or Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and China, and introduced China's long-standing agricultural achievements in the past 4,000 years, as well as his unique views on intensive cultivation, crop rotation and soil and water conservation. He thinks that eight aspects of Chinese traditional agriculture, such as reasonable crop rotation, manure application and composting, are worth learning from American farmers, and puts forward a unique view of organic agriculture. [Under the background that countries all over the world, especially western countries, have not fully understood eastern agriculture, this book has attracted great attention from American agricultural circles and produced far-reaching influence. In particular, it has had an impact and enlightenment on the later scholars engaged in organic agriculture, including Howard in Britain and Rodale in the United States.
However, the publication of this book has not solved the existing environmental problems. By 1933, at least 50 million acres in the United States have become barren, and1250,000 acres have lost fertility due to erosion. 1934, a disastrous black storm swept away 300 million tons of soil and reduced the yield of winter wheat by 102 billion Jin [4]. The sandstorm came back at 1935, and then it was dry for three consecutive years.
The situation in America in the 20th century was really bad. But in China, this problem appeared earlier, and similar environmental problems appeared as early as the pre-Qin period. Mencius pointed out long ago that Niu Shan in the southeast of Qi was "covered with mountains and fields" because of excessive logging and grazing. Mencius explained with the relationship between "raising" and "using": "It takes no time to get it; If you lose support, there is nothing to lose. " The way to balance use and nutrition is "too many nets, fish and turtles can't finish eating." The axe is in the mountain, and the tree can't be used. "This conforms to the principle of ecological balance and can realize the sustainable development of agriculture. Guanzi, Xunzi and Huainanzi all have more detailed expositions and viewpoints than Mencius, which is a profound lesson after natural revenge of deforestation and overfishing in some areas. Among them, Xunzi said: "The vegetation is lush, the axe does not enter the mountains, and its life lasts forever. When the giant salamander, turtle, loach and herring are pregnant, the poison will not enter the river, and it will continue all the time ... "It's time to cut and grow, so the mountain is not a child, and the people have more material.
Ecological fragility
Behind the environmental dependence, there is serious ecological fragility. This is not only manifested in the Yellow River basin in the north, the ecologically fragile mountainous areas in the southwest, but also in Jiangnan, the economic center.
Due to the emergence of "the land is poor and the mountains are exhausted", a large number of mountainous areas in the southwest have been reclaimed, and terraces have also appeared in the southeast, and soil erosion is inevitable. During the Song and Yuan Dynasties, in order to alleviate the population pressure, there were many forms, such as cabinet field, divided field, shatian field and earthen field, all of which used various possibilities to increase the grain planting area and feed more people.
In the south of the Yangtze River, where the national economy depends, polder fields have been expanding continuously in the Song and Yuan Dynasties. The result of competing with water for fields is to destroy the water system and cause floods, which are often disasters. Farmers in Song Dynasty constantly called for "returning lakes" and "abandoning fields". Song Xiaozong once said: "West Zhejiang has its own farmland, that is, there is a flood." In the Southern Song Dynasty, it was repeatedly ordered to ban the reclamation of farmland and restore farmland to lakes, but it could not be done because of the obstruction of powerful people. In the Qing Dynasty, Wei Yuan said in the Water Conservancy Records of Huguang that due to the continuous expansion of polder fields and reclamation fields, "the history of rivers (Yellow River) and no rivers (Yangtze River) in past dynasties" ended, and the Yangtze River began to become a land of famine.
A more direct description can be seen from folk proverbs, and the degree and scope of explanation are not small. At the same time that "the lake is wide and ripe, and the world is full" is popular, there is a proverb called "Husha Mianyang Zhou, not harvesting for ten years, but harvesting every year for ten years". The fertile land in the plain area "harvests for ten years a year", but this economic type is very fragile, and it is often "not harvested for ten years". Because a large number of wetlands have been reclaimed, once the flood comes and there is no place to flood, the disaster will not be harvested. China suffered from severe famine in history. Since the Song Dynasty, disaster relief works have been published continuously, especially in the Ming and Qing Dynasties.
However, it should be pointed out that the development of rice planting, compared with wheat planting and millet planting in dry land, has relatively little damage to the environment and generally does not cause soil erosion. The destruction of the ecological environment in the south is mainly caused by dry farming in mountainous areas, especially after the introduction of high-yield crops in the United States. Most areas where rice can be planted are low wetlands, with sufficient water resources and strong ecological restoration ability. Therefore, rice cultivation supported the civilization and progress in the late feudal society of China, which has continued to this day. Its high yield has fed the dense population in the southeast and created a splendid culture. The rice leaf civilization supported the development of the later period of Chinese imperial civilization.
In the south, the embodiment of ecological fragility is completely different from that in the north, mainly in two aspects. One is the soil erosion caused by dry farming instead of rice planting in mountainous areas, mainly in southwest China; Second, the reclamation of wetlands in the lake area led to the failure of flood discharge and frequent disasters, mainly concentrated in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. So, if the ancient people didn't invent the cultivation of rice, what would be the history of ecological environment change in China?
Environmental destruction is the mainstream of agricultural history. However, in addition to the main theme of human destruction, there are still some twists and turns to delay the degree of mainstream destruction, that is, there are some positive responses from the ecological point of view. From the point of view of saving land and protecting ecology, many measures have been invented and applied, among which the famous ones are intercropping in the north, "fish farming in rice fields" and "mulberry fish ponds" in the south. These are some measures in the process of technological progress, which have solved the contradiction of insufficient land and eased the crisis of ecological environment deterioration.
(b) Practices for the protection and sustainable use of land
The practice of sustainable land use is mainly manifested in the following aspects:
1, Intercropping and Intercropping since the Han Dynasty
The planting structure is single, and some areas are overpopulated, so it is inevitable to save land and make full use of it. During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, crop rotation and multiple cropping have appeared, and there are "four kinds of five gains" in governing the country. "Xunzi Guo Fu" records that "I will get it at the age of one." These are considered as the pioneering work to improve the land utilization rate in the agricultural history of China. During the Western Han Dynasty, rice and wheat crops appeared twice a year, and intercropping and interplanting began to sprout. [14] During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, intercropping and interplanting began to prevail, which was related to the lack of arable land for immigrants from north to south in the southeast since the Sui and Tang Dynasties, and the tense relationship between man and land. At that time, there were rice-bean intercropping, wheat-bean intercropping, cotton-wheat intercropping, grain-fertilizer intercropping, grain-grass intercropping, forest-grain-bean-vegetable-grass intercropping, and Xingping, Shaanxi Province had a method of harvesting thirteen crops a year and thirteen crops in two years. In short, in a narrow land, when the population cannot emigrate, they have to seek development opportunities from space [15].
2. Raising ducks to control locusts in Ming Dynasty.
"Raising ducks to control locusts" is similar to "raising fish in rice fields", which was first seen in the Ming Dynasty. In the Ming Dynasty, Chen Jinglun recorded in detail the process of his invention of raising ducks to control insects in his Notes on Controlling Locusts. Chen Jinglun once introduced sweet potatoes from Luzon Island to Fujian for trial planting. Later, he and his descendants actively devoted themselves to promoting sweet potato cultivation in various places. Sweet potato has become the food of the general public, which is largely due to Chen Jinglun and his family. Because of its wide adaptability, sweet potato eased the food shortage crisis in southeast China and even many parts of the country. According to scholars' research, raising ducks to control locusts was invented by Chen Jinglun in the process of popularizing sweet potato cultivation. Later, this method really became one of the important methods to control locusts in Jiangnan area, and many books on locust control also mentioned this method.
3. "Sangji Fish Pond" in Qing Dynasty
The earliest document of "Sangji Fish Pond" is recorded in Xinyu, Guangdong Province, which is a unique agricultural production form in the Pearl River Delta of Guangdong Province. In other words, mulberry fields depend on the fat mud in fish ponds, sericulture depends on mulberry leaves, and fish ponds depend on the interdependence of silkworm excrement and silkworm excrement. In the sericulture area of the Pearl River Delta, there is a "mulberry fish pond", which has continued to this day. According to "Gaoming County Records" (1894), "Dig deep depressions, the periphery is based on mud cover, the middle depression is a pond, and the six ponds are the foundation. Mulberry, pond fish, mulberry leaves and silkworm excrement are the best of both worlds and ten times as many crops. " "Mulberry pond" means "basic mulberry, pond culture, mulberry leaves feed silkworms, silkworm excrement feed fish, and pond mud raise mulberry", that is, silkworm excrement feed fish, pond mud fatten mulberry, plant mulberry, raise silkworm and raise fish organically, forming a virtuous circle in which mulberry, silkworm, fish and mud depend on each other and promote each other, avoiding floods in depression and harvesting again.
The above measures can not only ease the tension between people, but also protect the ecological environment. The invention of these measures is not only a continuation that China has been ahead of the world in empirical science since the Song Dynasty, but also an effective response to environmental deterioration.
4. "Rice, rice, soup and fish" in the Western Han Dynasty, "fish farming in rice fields" and "rice, fish and duck" since the Eastern Han Dynasty.
"Fish culture in paddy field" is the "interplanting" of planting technology and breeding technology, that is, interplanting rice and fish. It is also a new invention to save land because of the tense relationship between people and land in Jiangnan area. "Fish farming in rice fields" can be traced back to the tradition of "rice soup fish" in Chu and Yue mentioned by Sima Qian in Historical Records of Han Dynasty. Xiang Qiang questioned some scholars' view that "fish farming in rice fields" began in the Eastern Han Dynasty according to the archaeological findings of the Eastern Han Dynasty and Wei Wu's book "Four Seasons Food". [16] However, we believe that it is entirely possible to continue the tradition of "rice soup fish" in the southeast, but there is no corresponding literature to prove it. Mr. You pointed out: "The old farmer in Yongjia mountain area of Zhejiang said that when Sun Quan of the Three Kingdoms was in the world, our ancestors began to raise fish in rice fields. This oral history is in line with historical facts. " In Guizhou, Dong and Miao people also have the habit of "raising fish in rice fields".
As you said, Gushanyue planted rice in the mountainous area, and the flowing water and natural rainfall in the mountain can be guaranteed, but the fish food is limited to a small amount of fish in the mountain stream, which really can't meet the needs. Therefore, I want to breed them in rice fields. After repeated trial breeding and domestication, a "field fish" suitable for rice field breeding was finally selected from carp, and finally it became today's famous "Oujiang colored carp [17]". The existence of "fish farming in rice fields" also needs a key premise, that is, good folk customs. If the fish raised in the rice field are stolen before the owner harvests, then this tradition cannot be maintained.
"Fish culture in paddy field" can be said to be the response and innovation of Shanyue to "rice, rice and soup fish", and it is a three-dimensional "interplanting" in space. Since Ming and Qing Dynasties, due to the tense relationship between man and land, it is another form of interplanting between planting industries, except that one crop of the former was replaced by fish farming. Rice and fish grow together, and the combination of planting and breeding not only uses space, saves land, but also reduces the labor input required for intertillage, which can be described as killing two birds with one stone. For a long time, the ethnic groups mainly engaged in farming mainly obtained some plant-based foods, with a single food structure and poor quality. And "fish farming in paddy field" can harvest rice and obtain protein, which makes up for the shortage of protein in the food of farming ethnic groups.
"Fish farming in paddy field" organically combines rice planting and fish farming. Fish farming in rice fields has many ecological benefits. When the field fish feed, it stirs the water in the field, stirs the soil, provides oxygen for the growth of rice roots and promotes the growth of rice. The field fish eat weeds such as Erigeron breviscapus and Hedyotis diffusa and pests such as cicada in the rice field, which saves the use of pesticides and herbicides. The excreta of field fish is equivalent to applying organic fertilizer to paddy fields, and finally people get fish and rice, with complete animal and plant proteins, which has achieved good economic benefits [18].
Perhaps for cultural or other reasons, rice has never attracted western consumers in Europe. It is just a multifunctional and cheap substitute or supplement for daily food. It is mainly used to feed homeless groups-soldiers, orphans, sailors, prisoners, the poor and so on. To make up for the shortage or replace more delicious food. Rice has other uses, it is often used to feed animals, and it has many industrial uses, but rice has never been regarded as an article for survival [19].
But in China, rice is regarded as flour and rice, at least no less than wheat, and its contribution is immeasurable. Since rice was domesticated and planted about10,000 years ago, it has been the main food in the eastern world. It not only feeds a large number of people, but also subverts the law that agriculture will inevitably destroy the environment in a sense, because planting rice does not necessarily cause soil erosion. Therefore, it supported the continuous development of dense population and feudal society, economy and culture in the south after Ming and Qing Dynasties.
It is precisely because of rice, the only high-yield aquatic food crop, and the use of low wetlands that Chinese civilization will continue in the era after Sui and Tang Dynasties, unlike some civilizations that were interrupted for ecological reasons. Imagine what would happen if China in the East didn't grow rice? Only wheat can be planted in dry land, and the yield of millet is far less than that of rice. They couldn't feed so many ancient Americans. Corn, potatoes and potatoes were introduced from China in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, but they can't replace rice. Only rice, with high yield, can maintain soil and water, and the hero who supported the later development of Chinese civilization is mainly rice. Therefore, we should thank God for giving rice to China people. High-yield rice has fed a huge population and eased the tense relationship between man and land, which has become the life of many people.
The utilization of rice is a great contribution to the development of Chinese civilization, and the formation of fish culture and rice fish health care system in rice fields has pushed rice civilization to a higher level. Rice and fish were born, which not only harvested high-yield rice; At the same time, it also harvested high-quality animal protein, which made up for the vegetarian structure defects formed by single planting structure since Qin and Han dynasties in China. Thirdly, it is a three-dimensional "interplanting" form, which saves land and relieves the tension between man and land for a long time in history; Fourthly, because of the birth of rice and fish, the dependence on pesticides is reduced, the existence of biodiversity is maintained, and the value of weeds living in aquatic environment is enhanced. Biodiversity is a scarce product of our time, which can restrain the negative effects of chemistry and petroleum agriculture and help us achieve the goal of harmonious coexistence between man and nature.
6. "Fish farming in paddy field" and "Duck farming in paddy field" and their modern significance.
Although rice cultivation has no aggravating effect from the perspective of soil and water conservation, rice cultivation, even terraced fields, will not cause soil erosion. Reclaiming paddy fields in the south only occupied the geometric space when the flood came, which caused the flood to be unable to pour out and caused water damage. When chemical fertilizers and pesticides are not used in large quantities, it will not cause water pollution. However, today, due to the extensive use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, the rice field ecosystem has been destroyed, and harmful substances in the soil in arid areas only stay in it for a long time. In the aquatic environment of rice fields, a large amount of seepage flows into rivers, which has caused great pollution and destruction to the whole environment.
Scholars have done a lot of research on the ecological effects of raising fish and ducks in rice fields. The control function and mechanism of multi-species in rice field, which caused 9.9% loss of rice yield in the world. Cucumber scab is one of the important diseases of rice. The results showed that increasing the species diversity of rice fields could obviously control the occurrence of sheath blight. Xiao et al. reported that in the fish farming system in rice field, fish ate the nucleus and mycelium of Rhizoctonia solani in rice field, thus reducing the source of infection. At the same time, sheath blight mostly starts from the basal leaf sheath of rice, and fish compete for the perishable diseased leaf sheath, which can clear the source of the disease in time and delay the expansion of the disease; The fish scurrying in the field can not only improve the ventilation in the field, but also increase the dissolved oxygen in the water, promote the growth of rice roots and increase the disease resistance. The disease index of sheath blight in fish farms is lower than that in non-fish farms by 65438 0.87 on average. Duck breeding system in rice field also has a good control effect on the occurrence of sheath blight. Liu Xiaoyan and others reported that the rice-duck farming system also had a good control effect on sheath blight. Ducks can peck at some sclerotia to reduce the source of bacteria; The running and pecking of ducks can damage most of the germinated hyphae, thus losing the ability to dip; For infected plants, ducks can also peck at the diseased leaves in the lower part of rice seedlings, which hinders the spread of diseases. In addition, ducks also have the functions of weeding, removing diseased leaves and reducing ineffective tillering, which increases the ventilation and light transmission in the field, reduces the humidity in the field and prevents the normal growth of sheath blight, thus reducing the occurrence and harm of sheath blight. Compared with the duck-free experimental area, the diseased plant rate in the duck-free area decreased by 27.29% (middle rice) and 8.2 1% (late rice) respectively. The research of Wang Chengbao, Yang Zhiping and Zhang Jiaen also showed that raising ducks in rice fields can delay the development of rice sheath blight, and has a good control effect on the disease, and the incidence of sheath blight is reduced by about 50.0%. Of course, there are also different experimental results. Yu Shengmiao and other researchers believe that raising ducks in rice fields mainly controls the sheath blight of rice at the peak tillering stage and full heading stage, and the incidence of sheath blight in the rice-duck experimental area in these two periods is. From the whole growth period of rice, the average cluster incidence of sheath blight of ducks raised in rice field is higher than that of ducks not raised, which may be because the activities of ducks damage the stems and leaves of plants, making sheath blight more likely to infect plants; On the other hand, ducks may also become carriers of hyphae, taking them to different places and increasing the incidence of rice clusters [20].
Precautions:
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[17] You: "Fish farming in rice fields: one of the typical examples of the sustainable development of traditional agriculture", see China Economic History Forum.
[18] You: "Fish farming in rice fields: one of the typical examples of the sustainable development of traditional agriculture", see China Economic History Forum.
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[20] Wang Han, Xie Jian, Control of Diseases, Grasses and Insects by Multi-species Coexistence in Paddy Ecosystem, Journal of Applied Ecology, No.5, Vol. 18, May 2007.
(Author: china agricultural museum Research Department)
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