Xiong Hang: Filling in Key Technological Gaps and Enhancing China's Agricultural International Competitiveness

2023-04-26

This year's No.1 Central Document proposed accelerating the construction of an agricultural powerhouse and pointed out specific areas of construction. How can we seize the opportunity of technological change and accelerate the construction of an agricultural powerhouse? On March 22, Professor Xiong Hang, from the School of Economics and Management of Huazhong Agricultural University and Vice Dean of the Macro Agriculture Research Institute of Huazhong Agricultural University, gave an interview to China Daily on this issue.

Xiong stated that currently, emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and big data are transforming agriculture like never before, not only greatly improving the efficiency of agricultural production operations, but also driving the transformation of agricultural management decision-making from experience-based decisions to data-driven intelligent decisions. "Against the backdrop of digitalization and intelligence in agriculture and rural areas, it is timely for China to accelerate the construction of an agricultural powerhouse." Xiong believes that it is now necessary to pay more attention to filling in key technological gaps, stimulating the vitality of various elements, and striving to enhance China's international competitiveness in agriculture.

China Daily: Accelerating the construction of an agricultural powerhouse and quickly filling in the key technological gaps in the agricultural field is a must. How can we fill in the gaps and strengthen the foundation?

Xiong: The development of agriculture has always been supported by technological progress. Since the founding of the country, China's agriculture has gone through a process from mechanization to informatization and then to intelligentization. Currently, there is still a significant gap between China and the world's agricultural science and technology powers. It is necessary to speed up the filling of the technological gaps in agriculture and achieve high-level technological self-reliance and self-strengthening in agriculture. In recent years, China's agricultural technological innovation ability has steadily improved, but there are gaps in core germplasm resources, advanced equipment, and other areas. To fill the gaps in China's agricultural technology, we need to respect the characteristics of agriculture and provide long-term and sustained support for basic research in key areas of agriculture. We need to strengthen the basic research conditions of agricultural colleges and institutes, build a technology innovation platform system that matches the discipline system, and create conditions for the sustained conduct of basic and frontier research.

One important point to consider is that the development of agricultural software and models represents a bottleneck in China's efforts to advance the digital transformation of its agriculture industry. Agricultural models are the core of intelligent decision-making support systems. However, the models developed based on China's local conditions have obvious defects in both the rationality of internal mechanisms and the coverage of agricultural product types and varieties. The government needs to increase investment in basic research in the agricultural technology field, set up special projects for the development of agricultural models, and vigorously cultivate students who understand agriculture and have strong modeling capabilities.

China Daily: Emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence and big data, are rapidly penetrating various industries, including agriculture. How can we stimulate the vitality of various factors including talent, technology, and data?

Xiong: The breakthrough in key core technologies depends on effectively harnessing the enthusiasm of researchers. Currently, the enthusiasm of agricultural researchers for original scientific and technological innovation and achievement transformation has not been fully aroused. It is necessary to implement a distribution policy that focuses on increasing knowledge value, establish a salary system and income growth mechanism that reflects the value of intellectual labor, and to open up the "last kilometer" of agricultural scientific and technological achievement transformation.

With the vigorous development of the digital economy, data resources have gradually become an important production factor. First, it is necessary to establish a system for data elements to participate in the distribution of agricultural production and operation results. Only when data owners participate in the profit distribution mechanism of agricultural production and operation can we broadly and continuously mobilize the enthusiasm of various agricultural participants to obtain and provide high-quality data, and fully utilize that data to create value. In addition, we need to revitalize existing resources and optimize incremental resources, and build an agricultural knowledge map to connect information "islands". The first step is to achieve logical interconnection between data while maintaining the ownership and management structure of existing data resources, and establish a mechanism for sharing and exchanging agricultural and rural government information resources. This will facilitate interconnectivity with data from other industries, enterprises and research institutions.

China Daily: How can we enhance China's agricultural competitiveness?

Xiong: As the world's largest agricultural product producer and an important agricultural product trading country, enhancing agricultural competitiveness is essential for China to become an agricultural powerhouse.

On the one hand, we need to optimize the structure of agricultural imports and exports, and enhance our ability to cope with international market shocks and emergencies. In order to firmly grasp the initiative of future food security, it is necessary to grasp the multidimensional segmentation of domestic agricultural product demand, analyze the consumption structure of domestic agricultural products and predict the consumption trend of agricultural products in a timely manner; moderately expand the import of rigid demand food and agricultural raw materials, promote the import of high-quality agricultural products, and meet the diversified needs of China's food consumption market and food consumption. It is necessary to deepen the implementation of the strategy of diversified agricultural product imports to cope with the impact of the current global epidemic, climate change, and the conflict between Russia and Ukraine on food security, as well as to increase the variety of agricultural product imports, expand China's channels for importing agricultural products, and ensure China's food security through multiple channels.

On the other hand, we need to learn from the development experience of major agricultural import and export countries and explore the implementation of more proactive food security policies. In addition, it is necessary to further strengthen agricultural cooperation with countries along the "Belt and Road". We should strengthen the strategic docking of agricultural cooperation with countries along the route, take into account the interests and demands of all parties, support the facilitation of import and export trade, further optimize import and export trade measures, and eliminate trade barriers. Meanwhile, taking agricultural technology exchange and cooperation as a guide, deepen agricultural trade and investment cooperation in the six major economic corridors of the New Asia-Europe Continental Bridge, China-Mongolia-Russia, China-Central Asia-West Asia, China-South Asia, China-Pakistan, and Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar.