Agriculture Green Development in China and the UK: common objectives and converging policy pathways

Abstract

This paper has three aims. First, to examine how the negative environmental consequences of intensive agriculture have driven China and the UK to shift away from narrowly focused farm output policies and adopt more holistic green development pathways. Second, to explore the policy objectives they have in common. Third, to assess the numerous opportunities for joint research and knowledge sharing through the Sustainable Agriculture Innovation Network and other existing institutional mechanisms. The intensification of agricultural production in the UK started several decades earlier than in China as did the negative environmental consequences of the farm practices. However, their strategies and policies for sustainable intensification and green development have much in common. These are set out in two main documents: the Chinese State Council guidelines for green agriculture and the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs 25 Year Environment Plan. There are substantial mutual advantages from greater collaboration on problem identification and monitoring; the development of appropriate technological and management responses and the formulation of sound policies. To achieve this potential, it is recommended that further thought be given to how best to bring together all of the key stakeholders along the whole food chain.

Keywords

Agriculture Green Development / China / policy / UK

References

[1] The State Council of China. The 13th Five-Year Plan for Economic and Social Development of the People’s Republic of China (2016–2020), 2016. Available at The State Council of China website on September 1, 2019 (in Chinese)

[2] The State Council of China. Guidelines on Innovating Institutional Mechanism to Promote Agriculture Green Development, 2017. Available at The State Council of China website on September 1, 2019 (in Chinese)

[3] Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs the People’s Republic of China (MARA). Circular on the implementation of five actions for the Agriculture Green Development. Available at MARA website on September 1, 2019

[4] Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). A Green Future: Our 25 Year Plan to Improve the Environment. Available at GOV.UK website (government/publications) on September 1, 2019

[5] Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). Rules for farmers and land managers to prevent water pollution. Available at GOV.UK website (guidance) on September 1, 2019

[6] Deng L, Kim D G, Li M Y, Huang C B, Liu Q Y, Cheng M, Shangguan Z P, Peng C H. Land-use changes driven by ‘Grain for Green’ program reduced carbon loss induced by soil erosion on the Loess Plateau of China. Global and Planetary Change, 2019, 177: 101–115

[7] Ministry of Water Resources & National Bureau of Statistics. Bulletin of First National Census for Water. Beijing: Ministry of Water Resources & National Bureau of Statistics, 2013

[8] Panagos P, Borrelli P, Poesen J, Ballabio C, Lugato E, Meusburger K, Montanarella L, Alewell C. The new assessment of soil loss by water erosion in Europe. Environmental Science & Policy, 2015, 54: 438–447

[9] Stockdale E A, Griffiths B S, Hargreaves P R, Bhogal A, Crotty F V, Watson C A. Conceptual framework underpinning management of soil health—supporting site-specific delivery of sustainable agro- ecosystems. Food and Energy Security, 2019, 8(2): e00158

[10] Stroud J L. Soil health pilot study in England: outcomes from an on-farm earthworm survey. PLoS One, 2019, 14(2): e0203909

[11] Ball B C, Guimaraes R M L, Cloy J M, Hargreaves P R, Shepherd T G, McKenzie B M. Visual soil evaluation: a summary of some applications and potential developments for agriculture. Soil & Tillage Research, 2017, 173: 114–124

[12] Wang L, Stuart M E, Lewis M A, Ward R S, Skirvin D, Naden P S, Collins A L, Ascott M J. The changing trend in nitrate concentrations in major aquifers due to historical nitrate loading from agricultural land across England and Wales from 1925 to 2150. Science of the Total Environment, 2016, 542(Part A): 694–705

[13] Goulding K. Nitrate leaching from arable and horticultural land. Soil Use and Management, 2000, 16: 145–151

[14] Cui Z, Zhang H, Chen X, Zhang C, Ma W, Huang C, Zhang W, Mi G, Miao Y, Li X, Gao Q, Yang J, Wang Z, Ye Y, Guo S, Lu J, Huang J, Lv S, Sun Y, Liu Y, Peng X, Ren J, Li S, Deng X, Shi X, Zhang Q, Yang Z, Tang L, Wei C, Jia L, Zhang J, He M, Tong Y, Tang Q, Zhong X, Liu Z, Cao N, Kou C, Ying H, Yin Y, Jiao X, Zhang Q, Fan M, Jiang R, Zhang F, Dou Z. Pursuing sustainable productivity with millions of smallholder farmers. Nature, 2018, 555(7696): 363–366

[15] Chen X, Cui Z, Fan M, Vitousek P, Zhao M, Ma W, Wang Z, Zhang W, Yan X, Yang J, Deng X, Gao Q, Zhang Q, Guo S, Ren J, Li S, Ye Y, Wang Z, Huang J, Tang Q, Sun Y, Peng X, Zhang J, He M, Zhu Y, Xue J, Wang G, Wu L, An N, Wu L, Ma L, Zhang W, Zhang F. Producing more grain with lower environmental costs. Nature, 2014, 514(7523): 486–489

[16] Guo M L, Jia X P, Huang J K, Kumar K B, Burger N E. Farmer field school and farmer knowledge acquisition in rice production: experimental evaluation in China. Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment, 2015, 209: 100–107

[17] Jia X P, Huang J K, Xiang C, Powlson D S. Reducing excessive nitrogen use in Chinese wheat production through knowledge training: what are the implications for the public extension system? Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems, 2015, 39(2): 189–208

[18] Bai Z, Li X, Lu J, Wang X, Velthof G L, Chadwick D, Luo J, Ledgard S, Wu Z, Jin S, Oenema O, Ma L, Hu C. Livestock housing and manure storage need to be improved in China. Environmental Science & Technology, 2017, 51(15): 8212–8214

[19] Bai Z, Lu J, Zhao H, Velthof G L, Oenema O, Chadwick D, Williams J R, Jin S, Liu H, Wang M, Strokal M, Kroeze C, Hu C, Ma L. Designing vulnerable zones of nitrogen and phosphorus transfers to control water pollution in China. Environmental Science & Technology, 2018, 52(16): 8987–8988

[20] Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). Emissions of Emissions of air pollutants in the UK. Available at GOV.UK website (government/statistics) on September 1, 2019

[21] Wu Y, Gu B, Erisman J W, Reis S, Fang Y, Lu X, Zhang X. PM_2.5 pollution is substantially affected by ammonia emissions in China. Environment and Pollution, 2016, 218: 86–94

[22] Gu B j, Sutton M A, Chang S X, Ge Y, Chang J. Agricultural ammonia emissions contribute to China’s urban air pollution. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 2017, 12(5): 265–266

[23] UK-China Sustainable Agriculture Innovation Network (SAIN). Improved Nutrient Management in Agriculture: A Neglected Opportunity for China’s Low Carbon Growth Path. SAIN Policy Brief No. 1, Low Carbon Agriculture, May 2010. Available at SAIN website on September 1, 2019

[24] Nayak D, Saetnan E, Cheng K, Wang W, Koslowski F, Cheng Y F, Zhu W Y, Wang J K, Liu J X, Moran D, Yan X Y, Cardenas L, Newbold J, Pan G X, Lu Y L, Smith P. Management opportunities to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions from Chinese agriculture. Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment, 2015, 209: 108–124

[25] Wang W, Koslowski F, Nayak D R, Smith P, Saetnan E, Ju X, Guo L, Han G, de Perthuis C, Lin E, Moran D. Greenhouse gas mitigation in Chinese agriculture: distinguishing technical and economic potentials. Global Environmental Change, 2014, 26: 53–62

[26] Zhang W, Dou Z, He P, Ju X, Powlson D, Chadwick D, Norse D, Lu Y, Zhang Y, Wu L, Chen X, Cassman K, Zhang F. New technologies reduce greenhouse gas emissions from nitrogenous fertilizer in China. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2013, 110(21): 8375–8380

[27] Gao B, Huang T, Ju X, Gu B, Huang W, Xu L, Rees R M, Powlson D S, Smith P, Cui S. Chinese cropping systems are a net source of greenhouse gases despite soil carbon sequestration. Global Change Biology, 2018, 24(12): 5590–5606

[28] Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of the People’s Republic of China (MARA). Minister Han Changfu meets Elizabeth Truss (British Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs), 2015. Available at MARA website on September 1, 2019 (in Chinese)

[29] HM Treasury. UK-China 10th Economic and Financial Dialogue: policy outcomes. Available at GOV.UK website (government/publications) on September 1, 2019

[30] Norse D. Enhancing UK-China Knowledge Sharing and Mutual Learning in Agriculture, Food and Environment. SAIN Policy Brief No. 15, March 2017. Available at UK-China Sustainable Agriculture Innovation Network (SAIN) website on September 1, 2019

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge support from the UK-China Sustainable Agriculture Innovation Network (SAIN). The work contributes to the UK-China Virtual Joint Centres on Nitrogen, “N‐Circle” and “CINAg” funded by the Newton Fund via UK BBSRC/NERC (BB/N013484/1 and BB/N013468/1, respectively).

Compliance with ethics guidelines

Yuelai Lu, David Norse, and David Powlson declare that they have no conflicts of interest or financial conflicts to disclose.

This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

The Author(s) 2019. Published by Higher Education Press. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)