What is dry farming? How to develop arid agriculture?

Generally speaking, cultivated land is divided into paddy field, irrigated land and dry land, and agricultural science also studies paddy field agriculture, irrigated land agriculture and dry land agriculture accordingly.

Dry land refers to cultivated land other than paddy fields and irrigated land, and dry land agriculture refers to cultivated land that cannot be irrigated by conventional methods, including dry land outside arid and semi-arid areas and cultivated land with special irrigation methods (underground infiltration irrigation and drip irrigation). In many agricultural books, dryland agriculture is also called dryland agriculture, dryland agriculture, dryland cultivation and organic dryland agriculture. They refer to agriculture in arid and semi-arid areas, that is, areas with annual precipitation of 250 ~ 800 mm, which mainly use natural precipitation without irrigation. By establishing a reasonable agricultural structure in dry land and adopting a series of dry farming technical measures, soil fertility and effective utilization of natural precipitation are continuously improved, so as to achieve stable and high agricultural production and make agriculture, forestry and animal husbandry develop in an all-round way.

Dryland agriculture is also called non-irrigated agriculture. It is an area with more land and less water, rich surface water resources and short groundwater resources, or hilly terrain, which makes it difficult to develop irrigated agriculture. Make full use of natural precipitation. Follow the ecological principles, adapt to the ecological environment, conform to the ecological laws, maintain the ecological balance, take the establishment of a reasonable and efficient ecosystem as the goal, and adopt drought-resistant agricultural technology to engage in crop production.

The basic principle of implementation is to accumulate natural precipitation as much as possible, control surface water evaporation and crop transpiration, and use water efficiently and economically. It is also the best way to develop agriculture in arid areas at this stage to maintain the orderly state of energy conversion and material circulation in the process of agricultural production, proceed from economic benefits, do not force expensive irrigation agriculture, and pursue stable and high-yield ways.

The development of dryland agriculture can not only rely on the traditional planting management model. In the long run, agriculture, forestry and animal husbandry should be modernized, and efforts should be made to improve the utilization rate of natural precipitation at present. Taking improving soil fertility as a breakthrough, on the basis of increasing yield per unit area and ensuring food self-sufficiency, we should gradually return farmland to pasture and forest, change the ecological environment and take the road of comprehensive development of dry land agriculture.