First strategic significance of AST：Artificial soil technology is a gold key to solve the multiple contradictions of population and resource and? environment as well as development.
After hard work for more than half a century, our country has achieved world-acknowledged achievements. The powerful increase of the economy, the improvement of the overall national strength, the improvement of people’s living standards and the forming of the national stability are all specific symbols of the rising of China and the rejuvenating of the Chinese nation. However, as strategic research, we must be prepared for danger in times of peace and analyze the basic national conditions deeply to find out the problems China is facing now and work out a solution that has the effects of “Pull one hair and the whole body is affected”. As for national and international problems of great importance, related strategic countermeasures must be prepared; especially the opinions of non-governmental “strategists” must be heeded to.
The most abundant resources in China are people, the most insufficient resources are land, the most serious problem is environment and the most severely prohibited factor is development. Sufficient human resources are advantageous originally, but overpopulation, on the contrary, becomes a burden. There are 1.3 billion people in China now. The surplus labor force in the countryside runs up to 0.25 billion people and the number of farmers migrating to cities has surpassed 0.1 billion and the number of farmers breaking away from agriculture has reached 13 million each year. If the urbanization level reaches 60% in the year 2020 in China and the population is 1.6 billion, the urban population will reach 0.96 billion, which is the historical trend that can not be resisted. The 1.6 billion people will eat, dwell and work and the 1.6 billion mu cultivated land will have to feed such a population, which imposes great pressure and impact on the land and agriculture. The environmental situation of China is even more worrying. By 1995, the accumulated volume of solid industrial waste had reached 6.64 billion tons in China. At present, 2/3 cities have been surrounded by rubbish and pollution is spreading quickly from cities to the countryside. 95% untreated rubbish is being transported to the countryside or dumped to rivers. “3 degree” polluted farmland has exceeded 0.1 billion mu, which brings about one disaster after another to China that is already short of land resources. 88% of China’s rivers have been polluted to different degrees. The total volume of soil erosion each year has reached 5-6 billion tons. Desertification area of land has reached 2.622 million km2 and desertification of land is spreading at the average rate of 2460 km2 each year. All these figures are not exaggerated or distorted figures, but real facts. They are the problems that restrict the development of our economy. We must smash the bond of traditional concepts and find out an all-round solution that is trans-sector, trans-discipline, trans-trade and can play a leading role in dealing with all the problems from the high plane of strategic development. I have consulted many scientific and technical documents and tried to find out the solution, but without satisfactory results. Thinking back and forth, I still think that although artificial soil technology cannot be called “panacea” that can solve all problems, it is no exaggeration to say that it is a gold key to solving all the above problems. The reasons are as follows:
1) With the technology of artificial soil, soil can be manufactured commercially on a large scale and at high speed. The soil will be mostly used for making artificial land, thus changing the traditional concept that “land resources are limited”, which will radically solve the problem of inadequate land resources of China and enable the sustainable development of agriculture to have reserve strength.
2) The materials used for making artificial soil are nothing but the solid waste produced by industries, agriculture, mining, melting and construction, etc. as well as household rubbish, straw, human and animal wastes and silt in lakes and rivers, etc. (except harmful substances). These so-called pollutants are just used to make soil, thus changing wastes into valuable resources and solving the problem of environmental protection thoroughly and from the starting point.
3) The technology is simple to operate, so the ordinary people can accept it. There are about 0.9 billion farmers in China, so the technology will have strong mass bases and it will be easy to extend it. At the same time, lots of employment opportunities will be provided, which is beneficial to the systematic development of the society, the improvement of social benefits and the maintaining of social stability.
4) The quality standards of artificial soil can be designed differently according to the different management purposes, so the 2 billion mu land is a high quality resource. The quality of artificial cultivated land should be higher than that of the production bases of green foods in China. The production and management activities should be conducted according to the regulations on organic agriculture specified by Organic Foods Development Center (OFDC) of the National Environment Protection Bureau so as to improve the export competitiveness of our country’s agricultural products with expected good economic benefits. The stable development of agriculture will definitely promote the coordinated development of the other economic sectors of our country, thus enabling the harmonious combination of apparently contradicting natural issues and social issues, such as the development of economy, human activities, environmental protection, the restoration of natural ecological balance and the protection of diversity of organisms, etc to form a favorable cycle in a real sense and realize “nature and human in one” and reach the state of “following the natural rules” |
