Building forest "grain depot" to make China's rice bowl more "abundant"

At present, my country's forest area is 231 million hectares, and emerging industries such as woody oil and forest economy are booming.

Building forest "grain depot" to make China's rice bowl more "abundant"

Guangming Daily reporter Yao Yaqi

In the hazy morning light of early May, at the oil-tea planting base in Ludi Village, Maoyun Township, Kaiyang County, Guiyang, Guizhou, villagers have already wielded hoes and planted oil-tea trees one by one. As the planting scale continues to expand and the oil-tea trees enter their peak production period, high-quality tea fruits and tea oil products will be produced here and put on the shopping carts of families across the country.

"When I saw the store selling wild hazelnuts, linden honey, birch juice and other forest green foods, I wanted to buy some and send them home so that my family could also experience the local specialties." Yichun, the "Forest Capital" located in Lesser Khingan Mountains, welcomed tourists from all over the world during this year's May Day holiday. Many tourists were attracted by the small mountain specialty shops on the street and bought forest foods.

From grains, oils, fruits, spices, wild vegetables, and meat, forests provide people with a steady supply of food resources. This year's Central Document No. 1 proposes to build a diversified food supply system. We should establish a big food concept, accelerate the construction of a diversified food supply system that integrates grain, economy, and feed, combines agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, and fishery, and develops plants, animals, and microorganisms, and formulate implementation plans for different fields.

Forests are water reservoirs, money reservoirs, grain reservoirs, and carbon reservoirs. From the current state of industrial development in my country, how much potential is there in developing forest food? What opportunities and challenges are there? The reporter conducted an interview and investigation on this.

Gangbei Village, Xidu Town, Jing'an County, Jiangxi Province is located at the foot of Jiuling Mountain. Villagers rely on the mountain for their livelihood and are picking spring tea. Xinhua News Agency

There is great potential in developing forest food

On the once wasteland, dense tracts of sea buckthorn forests are now growing tenaciously; in the sea buckthorn processing factory, workers on the production line are busy packing the products. Sea buckthorn juice, medicinal tea, health food and other products are sold all over the country... In many places in Shanxi, relying on wild sea buckthorn resources and large-scale artificial cultivation, local villagers have gradually made the sea buckthorn industry bigger and stronger.

In recent years, Shanxi has continued to promote the transformation and development of the forestry and grassland industries, built dry fruit economic forests and forest economic demonstration parks, and created five major production areas for dry fruit economic forests such as walnuts, dried and fresh dates, sea buckthorn, and forsythia. As of October 2022, the area of ​​dry fruit economic forests in Shanxi Province was 19.64 million mu, and the total output exceeded 2.2 billion kilograms. The "forest and fruit economy" has provided support for increasing greening and enriching the people.

Not only in Shanxi, Baoji, Shaanxi, has actively developed the sweet persimmon specialty industry in Meixian, Fufeng, Weibin, Gaoxin and other counties and districts. The city's planting area has reached 12,000 mu, with an annual output value of more than 100 million yuan; Fengjie, Chongqing, has vigorously developed the white tea industry. The county's tea planting area is more than 30,000 mu, the output is 560 tons, and the output value exceeds 60 million yuan...

Based on their advantageous resources, various regions have developed rich and diverse forest foods, broadened food production and supply channels, better met the people's increasingly diversified food consumption needs, and ensured national food security.

my country is a major producer of forest food. Chen Lei, Secretary General of the China Forestry Ecological Development Promotion Association, told reporters: "Forest food refers to various types of food produced and processed using plants, microorganisms and animals grown in the forest ecological environment as raw materials. These mainly include forest vegetables, such as Chinese toon, mushrooms, fungus, etc.; forest fruits, such as blueberries, lychees, grapefruits, etc.; forest nuts, such as walnuts, hazelnuts, pine nuts, etc.; forest meat, such as livestock and poultry, fish, eggs, milk, etc.; and also include forest food, oil, beverages, medicinal materials, bee products, spices, tea and other types."

The 2022 China Land Greening Status Bulletin released by the Office of the National Afforestation Committee shows that my country currently has 231 million hectares of forests, with a forest coverage rate of 24.02%. Data released by the National Forestry and Grassland Administration show that in 2022, the total output value of my country's forestry industry will reach 8.04 trillion yuan, and emerging industries such as woody oil, forest economy, flowers, and eco-tourism will flourish. The supply capacity of green ecological products continues to increase, and economic forests have become one of the pillar industries with an annual output value of more than one trillion yuan.

According to the China Forestry and Grassland Statistical Yearbook, my country's forest food production was 154 million tons in 2014, and the demand was 151 million tons. By 2020, my country's forest food production will increase to 194 million tons, and the demand will be 191 million tons. From the perspective of demand structure, the main areas of forest food consumption in my country are fruits and dried fruits, accounting for about 66.5% of the demand, in addition to tea and other beverages, forest product collection, forest medicinal materials, etc.

"my country has great potential in developing forest food." Chen Lei said that forest plants are generally perennial, and once planted, they can benefit for many years. For example, it usually takes only 3 to 5 years from the planting of oil tea to the beginning of fruiting, and the benefit period is as long as 50 to 60 years, or even longer. Implementing scientific management and reasonable operation will reap long-term rewards. At the same time, forest plant cultivation has low costs, high benefits, and strong market competitiveness.

Chen Lei analyzed that we should attach importance to the important position of forest food in food security, promote the transformation and upgrading of food security quantity and quality, and put food production on a diversified, sustainable, efficient and resilient development path. In addition, we should encourage, attach importance to and guide the basic research of forest food resources, provide theoretical sources for the in-depth development and utilization of forest food, and make forest food truly an important pillar for ensuring the quantity of food security and improving the quality of food security.

Villagers in Chishui City, Guizhou Province, are picking tangerines. Xinhua News Agency

Achieve both economic and ecological benefits

There are still two months before yellow peaches are put on the market, and fruit farmers in Xianping Village, Yanling County, Hunan Province have already started to get busy. In the lush peach forest, they are seizing the farming time to thin out the peach trees. In recent years, Yanling County has made full use of its ecological environment advantages such as high altitude and suitable climate to vigorously develop the yellow peach industry. The yellow peach planting area has reached 96,000 mu, driving nearly 40,000 growers. At present, the output value of the entire yellow peach industry chain has reached 3 billion yuan, becoming a characteristic industry that drives the people in mountainous areas to get rich.

In Longwo Town, Zijin County, Heyuan City, Guangdong Province, Meiyuan Farming and Breeding Farmers' Professional Cooperative has also taken advantage of the original ecological advantages of the mountainous area and actively explored new ways to develop the forestry industry. The cooperative adopts the "cooperative + farmers + base" model and vigorously develops fruit planting, tea, flowers, seedlings, rice planting and breeding, which has driven local farmers to increase employment and income.

Developing forestry industry, forest economy, and forest food, diversified green industries have flourished in many parts of the country. Survey data from relevant institutions show that the scale of the global forest food market has steadily increased from US$1,124.9 billion in 2014 to US$1,450.6 billion in 2020, with an average annual compound growth rate of 4.33%. According to incomplete statistics, the scale of my country's forest food market has grown steadily year by year, reaching 2.92 trillion yuan in 2020, up 4.66% year-on-year.

"The forest food industry is an important pillar of the mountain economy and has high economic benefits," Chen Lei introduced. "For example, my country has developed more than 200 products in eight categories, including food and beverages, medical care, daily chemicals, feed, and bait, using seabuckthorn as raw materials, with an annual output value of 300 million to 500 million yuan, opening a new way for people to increase their income and become rich. Forest vegetables from many parts of my country have been exported to more than 20 countries and regions, including Canada, the United States, and Germany. The annual foreign exchange earned from root forest vegetables alone is more than 70 million US dollars."

According to incomplete statistics, as of the end of 2021, there were economic forest planting and production in more than 2,000 counties (cities, districts, and banners) in my country, involving more than 84 million rural population. The planting areas of major economic forests such as walnut, oil tea, apple, citrus, date, pear, and chestnut all exceeded 10 million mu, which effectively promoted the improvement of the ecological environment and industrial structure adjustment in mountainous areas, forest areas, sandy areas, old revolutionary areas, border areas, and ethnic minority areas.

In addition to increasing villagers' income and enriching themselves, the development of forest food also has significant ecological and social benefits. Chen Lei pointed out that most forest plants grow fast and have strong reproductive capacity, and are drought-resistant, barren-resistant, salt-alkali-resistant, and have strong resistance to adversity. Scientifically planting economic forests can not only produce "green food", but also green barren mountains, increase forest coverage, and help maintain water and soil and regulate the climate.

However, the development of forest food still requires strengthening the construction of mountain forestry ecology and using existing suitable mountain resources to cultivate food forests. Balancing the relationship between "getting food from the forest" and protecting the ecological environment is also a challenge faced in the process of developing forest food.

Chen Lei said that to get food from forests, we must handle the dialectical relationship between development and protection. On the one hand, we must strictly adhere to the red line of ecological protection, coordinate afforestation in multiple ways and methods, improve forest quality and total volume, and promote the reproduction of various forest species; on the other hand, we must focus on improving the quality and efficiency of forestry, cultivate superior varieties of forest products, develop ecological industries such as seedlings and flowers, forest economy, forest grass and Chinese medicinal materials according to local conditions, develop diverse, nutritious, healthy, convenient and fast forestry products, and transform forest resource advantages into industrial advantages.

Promote technology development and application innovation

Walnut is one of the specialty fruits of Chaotian District, Guangyuan City, Sichuan Province. In the walnut base in early May, the walnut trees are lush and green. "In order to achieve the scale, standardization and branding of the walnut industry, we strongly support walnut cooperatives and large walnut growers to extend the walnut industry chain. Currently, three primary processing points have been built." A relevant person in charge of the Chaotian District Forestry Bureau introduced. In recent years, new products such as walnut oil, walnut snacks, and walnut mooncakes launched in the market have attracted many consumers to buy, and the market share has continued to increase.

Walking into Changshan County, Zhejiang Province, 280,000 mu of oil-tea trees cover the rolling hillsides, bringing a sense of greenery. By breaking the traditional industrial limitations of "planting and selling" oil-tea trees and extending from bases and factories to the market, Changshan now has more than 40 oil-tea processing enterprises (cooperatives) and 8 enterprises with refined oil processing capabilities. It has developed more than 20 series of products in five categories, including cosmetics, health products, and saponins. Recently, Changshan issued the "Three-Year Action Plan for the Oil-Tea Industry 2023-2025", which pointed out that it will increase support for the entire industry chain, improve the county's oil-tea industry ecology, and stimulate the enthusiasm of market players to plant oil-tea trees on a large scale.

From vegetables, fruits, nuts, to initially processed juices and cooking oils, to deeply processed health products, in recent years, various regions have developed rich and diverse forest foods by extending the industrial chain and deep processing. However, in the development of forest foods, many regions in my country still have some shortcomings. Wu Jiasheng, vice president and professor of Zhejiang Agricultural and Forestry University, pointed out that my country has initially formed an economic forest industry pattern with distinctive characteristics, complete functions and good benefits, but the development and utilization of forest "grain depots" still has many problems, such as lack of development planning, insufficient resource exploitation and utilization, lagging variety selection and breeding, large area of ​​low-yield and low-efficiency forests, unclear characteristic functional components, lack of high-value products, backward technology and equipment of the entire industrial chain, weak basic research, and insufficient cross-border integration.

"In the development of forest food, some regions have developed and utilized fewer species, neglecting the development of their own famous and high-quality products; some forest food resource processing methods are still relatively crude, neglecting the multifunctional comprehensive utilization and development of new products." Chen Lei told reporters, "For example, Juglans mandshurica, walnut kernels are rich in nutrients and can be used to extract oil; oil cakes can be used to make protein drinks; leaves, bark, and green peels can all be used as medicine. However, at present, when developing and utilizing Juglans mandshurica, usually only its mature kernels are taken, and the comprehensive utilization rate is low."

Wu Jiasheng suggested that we should speed up the industrial layout, scientifically determine the industry types and development positioning according to the principle of adapting measures to local conditions and planting trees in the right places. At the same time, we should enhance the scientific and technological innovation capabilities, and tackle basic scientific problems and "bottleneck" technologies such as precision breeding, ecological cultivation, and deep processing of characteristic forest foods.

In terms of industrial development such as research, utilization and development of forest food resources, Chen Lei said that we must first understand our situation and establish a forest food census system; secondly, based on the linkage effect of upstream and downstream industries, we can cultivate a green supply chain for ecological production of forest foods, strengthen talent training and technology promotion in the field of forest foods, and promote forest food technology development and innovation in its entire process of application.

In 2022, my country will complete 133,300 hectares of tea oil planting and 266,700 hectares of transformation, and the annual output of tea oil is expected to exceed 1 million tons.