مقاله انگلیسی رایگان در مورد مکانیسم ادغام با کشاورزی و اصلاح برای اطمینان از امنیت غذایی – الزویر 2018

Productivity of intensive rice cropping systems plays a pivotal role in national food security in China. By 2030, a 20% increase in rice yield will be required to meet the growing demand for food that will result from population growth. The success of China’s super hybrid rice was expected to provide an opportunity to cope with the increased demand for rice. However, in China the planting area of super hybrid rice is less than 8% of the national total rice planting area and the planting area of hybrid rice has continued to decline since 1996. The decreased planting area of hybrid rice is related to the shift in rice establishment methods from manual transplanting to direct seeding and mechanical transplanting. These shifts can result in increased seeding rates and reduced morphological advantages of heterosis (e.g. reduced panicle size), both of which can influence cultivar choice by rice farmers, who will tend to favor cheaper inbred cultivars. The shifts in rice establishment methods can also eliminate or reduce the seedling nursey period and subsequently shorten the growth duration and negatively affect the yield. We anticipate that the above problems will be resolved by integrating mechanization (e.g. designing high-precision seed sowing machines) with agronomy (e.g. improving management practices for increasing seed vigor) and breeding (e.g. developing high-yielding cultivars with short growth durations). This strategy also has implications for production of other crops in intensive farming systems in China and for other developing countries with rice-based intensive cropping systems.

Challenges to rice production for ensuring food security in China

China has 22% of the world’s population but only 7% of the world’s arable land (Piao et al., 2010). In order to produce enough food, intensive cropping systems have been extensively developed in China. Considerable progress has been made by developing high-yielding crop cultivars and improving crop management practices. As a result, there has been remarkable growth in both crop production and national food security in China (Fan et al., 2012). Rice is a staple food for more than 65% of the population in China. Double-season rice systems and single-season rice in rotation with other crops such as wheat and oilseed rape are the major intensive rice-based cropping systems in China. Over the last 60 years, the production of rice has more than tripled in China mainly due to increased grain yield rather than increased planting area (Fig. 1). However, the population of China continues to grow, and thus domestic production of rice must increase in the next 13 years. It is projected that China needs to produce 41 million t (Mt) more rice by 2030, compared to the 207 Mt produced in 2017 (Fig. 1). Because the area of cropland will decrease with urban expansion (Bren d’Amour et al., 2017), future increases in rice production must come from greater yields. Though the rice planting area will be the same in 2030 as in 2017, an increase in rice yield of 1.36 t ha−1 , or 20%, is required in the next 13 years (Fig. 1). This increase is more than double that (0.60 t ha−1 ) achieved in the last 13 years, presenting a challenge for national food security in China.