Nanchang, March 18: Rice is one of the world’s most important crops and is a staple food for more than half of the world’s population.Rice cultivaiton accounts for 25% of China’s total cultivated area and contributes about 30% for global rice production. Maintaining high rice productivity in China is of great significance to the world’s food security.
Dr. Muhammad Umair Hassan comes from Pakistan and sudies postdoctoral at Jiangxi Agricultural University.To explore the history and the modernization of Chinese rice cultivation, Umair comes to Wannian county in China’s east Jiangxi Province, where located on the south-eastern bank of Poyang Lake, China’s largest freshwater lake. Wannian county is the Famous place of rice farming culture in the world.
Fertile farmlands are scattered with a dense network of lakes in Wannian county. In the 1990s, the Sino-US Joint Archaeological Team discovered artificially cultivated rice phyllosilicate dating back to 12,000 years ago in Fairy Cave Site, which is now known as the earliest cultivated rice in the world.
Followed Liu Denggen, a staff member from the Fairy Cave Scenic Area, Umair walk into the Fairy Cave site. Liu introduced that tools such as stone grinding discs, perforators, and clam sickles were also found in the site at that time. The stone grinding discs were used for threshing rice, and the clam sickles were used to grind the edge of the clam into uniform gaps, similar to the sickles currently used for harvesting.
Nowadays, rice planting has been mechanized and mass-produced in many parts of China with technological development.A 700-mu(about 47 hectares) rice field is in full bloom with rape flowers o utside the site, the high-quality rice will be planted after the rape is harvested in less than a month. Luo Huimin, who contracted this rice field, is engaged in the production and sales of ecological organic rice. He showed Umair the intelligent agricultural production including small sunlight weather station,temperature and humidity intelligent monitor.In addition to the weather station, high-definition cameras are installed in the field, enabling to observe the growth of crops from mobile phone.
Luo contracted 3000-mu(about 200 hectares) of paddy field this year, and basically realized the entire process of mechanization from sowing to harvesting by purchasing various types of agricultural machinery such as field beaters, transplanters, and harvesters.
As an important grain production area in Jiangxi, the grain production area of Wannian County was 690 thousand-mu (about 46 thousand hectares) in 2021, with a total grain output exceeding 256 million kilograms.
Rice is also an important staple food in Pakistan. China and Pakistan also cooperate to cultivate new hybrid rice varieties suitable for high temperature in Pakistan, helping to increase production and income for Pakistani. Umair said that he would bring what he learned in agricultural back to Pakistan and will use it for welfare of his nation.Enditem
