Research On The Promotion And Development Of Fertilizer Industry In Shaanxi Province (1937-1947)

A steady rise of agricultural production is always of fundamental significance for the development of human beings,and in the process of agricultural development,there are no more than two ways to increase grain production:one is to increase the area of farmlands,and the other,to increase the yield per unit area.After a long period of gestation and development,the intensive and meticulous farming in China has chosen the latter,and the application of fertilizer becomes one of the key factors.As one of the important cradles of Chinese civilization,Shaanxi has always been in the forefront of agricultural development,especially in the application agricultural technology.In the modern times,as one of the main grain producing areas in the North of China,Shaanxi has become the bridgehead in the Anti-Japanese war.At that time when the nation was faced with severe supply pressure and an increasing number of victims,food supply in Shaanxi province became one of the important factors that has influenced the war situation to a certain extent.Limited by its geographical location,farming habits,the education level of farmers and its economic development,etc.,the exploration and promotion of fertilizers in Shaanxi at that time gave priority to traditional organic fertilizers.Based on the above-mentioned,this paper is mainly divided into two parts.The first part covers the introduction of the leading organizations devoting to fertilizer promotion and the top-level design of the fertilizer industry,highlighting the illustration of their administrative structures and fertilizer-promotion policies.The second part is a detailed explanation about the four fertilizer experiment methods(compost,green manure,crushed bones and chemical fertilizer)and the co-relating promotion rules.Relevant problems and solutions will also be covered.Two organizations were mainly responsible for the promotion of fertilizers in Shaanxi during that period.The Shaanxi Supervision Committee of Grain Production Increase,which was affiliated to the National Committee of Grain Production Increase(the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry),was the first one.The other was the Shaanxi Promotion Institute of Agriculture,which was metamorphosed from several agricultural academies.This paper will carry out a detailed introduction of the organizational regulations,institutional settings,work flow and etc.of the two organizations so as to grasp the situation of fertilizer promotion in this period from the top design.In this process,we are expecting to find out the macro-control and micro-guidance of the institutional structure for agricultural development,and thus further the discussion of problems emerging in the process of fertilizer experiment and promotion.During that period,tasks of fertilizer promotion could be divided into four aspects.First,the propaganda and promotion of compost.As a typical representative of organic fertilizers,the use of compost has a history of several thousand years.But peasants did not show a high enthusiasm for compost for its complicated processing techniques,high consumption of manual labor and inefficiency.The development of compost has achieved a bigger success thanks to the joint efforts made by the Shaanxi Supervision Committee of Grain Production Increase and the Shaanxi Promotion Institute of Agriculture to increase its publicity and promotion.Next,the test and promotion of green manure.As the top priority of the development of green manure in that period,the experiment and promotion was divided into two parts according to the geography and the environment:experiments of bean green manure in wheat lands in summer in the Guanzhong District and experiments of Chinese trumpet creeper green manure in rice lands in winter in the Southern part of Shaanxi.During the experiments,the Shaanxi Supervision Committee of Grain Production Increase and the Shaanxi Promotion Institute of Agriculture together set elaborate rules and promotion ways,and laid out specific areas for its promotion.The promotion of green manure in this period had turned out to be the most successful and had made great achievement among most of the experiments and promotion of fertilizers.Furthermore,the experiment and promotion of crushed bones.As a kind of directly-applied organic fertilizer,its fertilizing efficiency is obviously higher than compost and green manure.Crushed bone was actually a traditional organic fertilizer in nature and had a certain history in the development of China's agriculture.But as a product of industrialization in modern times,crushed bones were produced in limited quantities,which,to a great extent,hindered its relevant experiments and promotion at that time.Various records had shown that in that period,experiments and promotion of crushed bones,with a comparatively low influence and a smaller acreage,had been given highly complimentary remarks for its efficiency.Finally,the experiment of chemical fertilizer.As the trend of agricultural and fertilizer development,chemical fertilizer imposed a significant influence.Meanwhile,due to the economic conditions,geographic locations and agricultural practice in production in Shaanxi,production of chemical fertilizers heavily relied on its cooperation with foreign companies.Experiments had been carried out on a small scale,which had laid a solid foundation for its future promotion.In short,during the decade from 1937 to 1947,the fertilizer industry in Shaanxi province had made great progress.The experiments and promotion of fertilizers gradually corresponded to local practice,which helped to promote the increase of grain production and facilitate the victory of the anti-Japanese war and the recovery of agricultural production.With the experiments and popularization of fertilizers,peasants had also made great progress in their production concepts and habits.From the perspective of the development of productivity,experiments and popularization of fertilizers was one of the measures taken to increase agricultural productions.But in nature,it was the interaction between peasants and the administrative agencies at all levels,which also had become an essential part in the war-time economic system of agricultural development and in the fast-changing social and economic life.Moreover,the process of fertilizer-promoting and the thus problem-solving had witnessed the level of social development and the related problems of agricultural production in rural China during war-time in the recent dramatically-changed society.The development of rural area should be reviewed from a new angle.