Modernization of China’s eco-agriculture: connotation, task and path

As China’s agriculture is in a critical period of modernization, further recognizing the connotations, tasks, and paths of China’s eco-agriculture in the new era and reaching a common understanding is necessary. In our view, modern eco-agriculture in China can be considered an essential path to the modernization of China’s agriculture because of its origin from China’s traditional agriculture, absorbing modern achievements in science and technology, and applying a modern management system of industry, which also gives new meaning to China’s eco-agriculture. However, the modernization of China’s eco-agriculture continues to face huge challenges in ensuring food security, ecological safety, nutrition security, inheritance of traditional farming culture, and the realization of common prosperity. Consequently, by maintaining a systematic approach, upholding fundamental principles, and breaking new grounds, China’s eco-agriculture should make considerable breakthroughs aimed at innovating the typical model of ecological agriculture, strengthening the research and development of agricultural green inputs, accelerating the development and application of new equipment for ecological agriculture, promoting the operational capacity of industrial chains, and improving the policy and mechanism of ecological compensation. The practical pathes would focus on maize and soybean intercropping, rice-fish co-culture, green house planting-breeding, indoor vertical eco-farm innovation of typical models; new slow/controlled release fertilizer, new liquid fertilizer, biochar based fertilizer, microbial fertilizer, micronutrient fortifier, green smart fertilizer, green manure crop, photo-micro fertilizer, CO₂ gas-fertilizer; biological pesticide, natural enemies and pollinating insects, new insect trapping equipment; biodegradable mulch film and soil remediation technology & product in green inputs area; advanced agricultural basic equipment, intellisense technology, cloud-brain technology, intelligent control/management technology, internet of things based on integrated ground-air-space, platform of space breeding laboratory, recycling system of organic waste, integrated biological control system for diseases, insect pests and weeds, indoor vertical farming system in agricultural equipment area; community supported agriculture, ecological leisure and health care, cloud ecological farm, green international trade in operation of modern industrial chain; and Gross Ecosystem Product (GEP), Gross Economic-Ecological Product (GEEP), and Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) in agricultural policy making. In summary, based on China’s actual conditions, there is an urgent need to innovate and develop the modern industrial and technological system of China’s eco-agriculture by relying on the two-wheel drive of agricultural science and technology and rural reform, which would provide Chinese solutions for the sustainable development of world agriculture in future decades.