[03:47.71]MODERN AGRICULTURE
[03:53.59]For thousands of years traditional agriculture in China did not change very much.
[04:01.14]Most farms were one-family businesses.
[04:05.68]Although China is a very big country,
[04:09.84]only seven percent of the land cna be used for arming.
[04:15.29]It is on this arable land that the farmers produce food
[04:21.17]for the whole population of China.
[04:24.70]Farmers in China have long used techniques such as fertilisation and irrigation
[04:32.14]to make their land produce more.
[04:35.91]Over time,many farming techniques have been modernised:
[04:41.26]chemical fertilisers are now used and electric pumps are used in irrigation.
[04:48.03]To make as much use of the land as possible,
[04:53.17]two or more crops are planted each year where possible.
[04:58.81]Rice,cotton and vegetable seeds are sometimes grown in special seedbeds before
[05:06.26]they are planted in the fields.
[05:10.23]This saves time and allows farmers to grow an extra crop in each season.
[05:17.07]More advanced technical information was brought in from abroad in the 1980s.
[05:23.45]Import of technology and machines,
[05:27.50]and the international exchange of delegations
[05:32.07]have helped Chinese farmers improve their production.
[05:36.93]It was from the early 1990s that scientists started to develop new techniques
[05:44.19]to increase agricultural production without harming the environment.
[05:50.35]Chemical fertilisation,for example,helps to produce better crops,
[05:56.60]but is harmful to the environment.
[06:00.07]New techniques should increase agricultural production
[06:05.35]but also be friendly to the environment.
[06:09.19]Future agriculture should depend on high technology as well as traditional methods.
[06:16.63]Not only is food production important but also taking care of the environment.
[06:23.11]The biggest problem of Chinese farmers is the shortage of arable land.
[06:29.28]Using the latest technologies,
[06:33.04]Chinese scientists grow vegetables in greenhouses.
[06:37.87]The roots of these vegetables are not planted in earth
[06:42.83]but hang in water that contains all the nutrients they need to grow.
[06:48.48]Today,many vegetables are not grown in gardens
[06:54.12]but in greenhouses where they are protected from the wind,rain and insects.
[07:00.68]The temperature is controlled with computers,no matter how the weather is outside.
[07:07.76]Another technique tries to create plants that produce more and bigger fruit.
[07:14.10]In 1993,a kind of tomato was developed
[07:19.46]that was very different from any grown before.
[07:24.03]It was developed using a technique known as GM.
[07:29.18]"G"stands for"genetically"from the word"genes".
[07:34.95]"M"stands for"modified",which means"changed".
[07:40.80]In other words,the way tomatoes grow from a natural seed is changed.
[07:47.25]The new tomatoes are bigger and healthier.
[07:51.82]They can grow without danger from diseases.
[07:56.26]They also need much less time to get ripe.
[08:01.02]The tomato is one of nearly 4,500 different plants that are genetically modified.
[08:08.88]In China,about one hundred research stations
[08:14.13]are now doign GM research to make better tomatoes,
[08:19.38]cotton,tobacco,green peppers,flowers,watermelons,soybeans,fish and of course rice.
[08:29.44]A variety of GM watermelons will be seedless and there is GM rice,
[08:36.10]sometimes called"golden rice",
[08:40.25]which will have more vitamins and can grow in poor soil.
[13:29.82]3 It is the shortage of arable land
[13:42.49]that results in the biggest problem of Chinese farmers.
[14:03.15]FARMING AND GARDENING
[14:10.23]Agriculture has a long history in China.
[14:14.80]Much of the wisdom discovered by early Chinese scientists is still useful
[14:21.34]for farmers and gardeners today.
[14:25.28]One of China's early agricultural scientists was Jia Sixie,
[14:31.03]who lived in the sixth century AD.
[14:35.15]He was born in Yidu,Shandong Province.
[14:39.73]He spent his time on research into agriculture
[14:44.58]He collected information,studied it,
[14:49.03]did experiments and learnt from the experiences of farmers.
[14:55.50]Around 540 AD,he wrote a book called Qimin Yaoshu.
[15:01.75]The book is about both farming and gardening.
[15:06.32]It includes advice on the following subjects:
[15:11.18]growing green vegetables and fruit trees,keeping cows,sheep and fish in lakes.
[15:19.12]There are also instructions for making wine.
[15:23.38]For centuries after Jia Sixie died,
[15:29.33]his book was studided by Chinese farmers and students of farming.
[15:35.50]Jia Sixie's book is a practical guide to farming.
[15:40.77]Firstly,as a farmer you should do things at the right time of the year.
[15:47.30]If you sow seeds and grow young plants in the fields at the correct time of the year,
[15:54.44]your work will be less and the results will be better.
[15:59.61]But if you go against nature and do things at the wrong time of year,
[16:05.67]you will have to do more work and the results will not be so good.
[16:11.42]The condition of the soil is also very important.
[16:16.40]Examine the soil on your farm carefully.
[16:20.85]If the condition of your soil is not good,you should improve it.
[16:26.59]Before sowing or planting crops,
[16:30.72]rough ground must be cleaned and weeds removed.
[16:36.18]Let sheep or cows walk on the land.
[16:40.93]The animals will destroy the weeds or eat them.
[16:45.51]The land should also be ploughed,so weeds are destroyed.
[16:51.15]When you plough the soil,
[16:54.49]plough deep the first time and less deep the second time.
[16:59.74]So the autumn ploughing should be deeper than the spring ploughing.
[17:05.02]The best harvest is reached when farmers change the crops in their fields.
[17:11.86]For example,do not plant rice year after year in the same field.
[17:18.24]But if you plant rice in a field one year and wheat in the field the next year,
[17:25.19]you will harvest good crops.
[17:28.84]Other scientists said that wheat should be planted with space between the plants,
[17:35.92]but Jia did experiments and showed that planting wheat close together is better.
[17:42.58]He also said that it is good to grow different pants
[17:48.15]next to each other in the same field |