Innovative Changes in Tobacco: A Case Study of Tobacco-Cultivation Areas in Guizhou, China

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A Case Study of Tobacco-Cultivation Areas in Guizhou, China

By TobaccoChina Online

In recent years, tobacco cultivation areas in China have met with the issue of excessive production, yet the quality of the crop cannot fully meet the needs of cigarette manufacturers. In Guizhou province, which is the second largest production base of high-quality flue-cured tobacco, some other issues include the reduction of tobacco leaf scale, the decline of tobacco leaf quality, and the loss of tobacco farmers.

In December 2018, Guizhou released relevant data on tobacco leaf production, showing that 4.034 million loads of tobacco leaves were purchased in the past year, in which the proportion of top-grade tobacco reached 63.7%, with its year-on-year (YoY) growth at 13.7%. The average price of each load of tobacco leaves grew by RMB144.76 over the same period to RMB1327.90; the average income per mu (1 mu=0.0667 hectares) increased its YoY segment to RMB3,606 from RMB659.

The average income of tobacco growers was RMB95,100, with a YoY growth of RMB23,900. In general, 2018 saw a substantial increase in terms of the tobacco grade structure, the average purchase price, output value per mu and per household income, reaching the highest level in the past years.

The above data is a reflection of the efforts made by Guizhou’s tobacco-cultivation areas against the difficulties to stabilize scale, optimize structure, and transforming and upgrading, as well as create ecological tobacco leaf products with better performance-price ratio, safety, and availability, as well as innovative transformation and development.

Guizhou’s tobacco cultivation areas initially went ton a new development path in order to enhance tobacco leaf efficiency, tobacco farmers’ income, ecological value, and facilities upgrading by actively constructing a green production system, speeding up the transformation and upgrading of tobacco production.

Building ecological tobacco-planting areas

Guizhou has an ecological tobacco belt stretching from east to west, formed by the Wujiang river basin and Loushan mountains in the central and eastern areas and the Panjiang river basin and Wumeng mountains in the west.

Good ecological environment is an important basis for the production of high-quality tobacco leaves with special characteristics. The longitude and latitude, elevation, topography, climate, soil, and other ecological resources of Guizhou have created the excellent quality of tobacco leaf grown in this province.

In recent years Guizhou has strictly controlled the production scale of areas with practices unfriendly to the environment as well as reduced the production scale of sub-optimal eco-tobacco areas while increasing the production scale of suitable and most suitable eco-tobacco areas. The province has organized tobacco production and acquisition in strict accordance with industrial demands; allocated planned resources to the most suitable areas with strong market demands to centralize configuration; selected the areas featuring superior ecology and distinctive characteristics to create backbone tobacco growing areas; and promoted the centralized and continuous cultivation of high-quality tobacco growing areas in a unitary and regionalized way.

Use of organic fertilizers to improve productivity

Tobacco fields are fundamental to the development of the industry, and as such protecting tobacco fields is equal to protecting the productivity levels of tobacco cultivation. In order to solve the issues of soil degradation and environmental pollution caused by the application of chemical fertilizers, Guizhou focused on soil conservation with the application of organic fertilizers and further optimizing basic tobacco fields.

In 2018, 153,000 tons of organic fertilizer was applied in Guizhou’s cultivation areas, as well as 544,500 mu of green manure dressing and 160,000 mu of carbon-based organic fertilizer. However, the average fertilizer application per mu decreased from 74.3 kg in 2014 to 62.7 kg in 2018, down by 15%.

Recycling plastic film to prevent “white pollution”

Plastic film mulching and cultivation play an important role in flue-cured tobacco production in China. But, if plastic film fails to be recovered in time, it will destroy the soil tillage, reduce the quality of soil, and cause “white pollution”.

Guizhou started a pilot project recycling plastic film in 2013, focusing on exploring ways to solve the problem of plastic film recycling and establishing working mechanisms. In the demonstration green development park of Zhena Town, Weining Autonomous County, which is one of Guizhou’s cultivation areas, a plastic granule production line is operating at full capacity, the raw material of which is from the recycled plastic film from tobacco production in Bijie, Guizhou.

Two plastic film recycling and processing plants in Zunyi, Guizhou have adopted the recycled agricultural film to produce into plastic baskets, seedling trays, and other finished products through a series of processes such as broken cleaning line, granulation production line, and injection production line.

At present, 15 plastic film recycling and processing plants have been built in Guizhou, with a capacity of more than 6,000 tons. They have established a working model of “tobacco farmers collecting + cooperative recycling + processing and reuse of suppliers of plastic film production”, as well as established technical criteria for removal, recycling, packaging, and transportation of agricultural plastic film. Guizhou annually subsidizes.

RMB60 million to tobacco farmers to enable plastic film removal and recovery, which motivates the tobacco farmers and strongly promotes plastic film removal and recovery.

Biological pest control

Adhering to the biological pest control concept in recent years, Guizhou has vigorously promoted the application of aphid cocoon wasps, a biological pesticide control technology using gyplure. In 2018, 12 aphid cocoon wasps conservation bases were built in the province’s tobacco-cultivation areas, benefiting 194.4 million mu of tobacco fields, covering 96.8% of the cultivation areas. While promoting biological control, Guizhou has also promoted specialized crop protection, adhering to scientific, standardized, and reduced chemical use. Meanwhile, Guizhou has also constructed and implemented a good agricultural practices management system for flue-cured tobacco, actively exploring the sustainable development system of tobacco leaves, and comprehensively boosting the simultaneous development of the environment of tobacco-planting areas with the health and safety protection of tobacco farmers and the quality and safety of tobacco leaves.

Flue-curing quality improved with clean energy

In recent years, Guizhou has actively explored alternative energy sources such as biomass energy, air energy heat pumps, and solar energy to replace traditional coal burning.

Traditional flue-curing barns use coal as fuel, the curing process of which takes time and energy. The temperature and humidity control is not precise, and harmful gases such as sulfur dioxide are generated during the combustion of coal, which also affects the environment. With new energy sources such as electric energy and biomass energy, it is now possible to achieve smart temperature and humidity control, and efficiency and stability have been improved. More importantly, harmful substances have significantly reduced, allowing the tobacco industry to contribute greatly to environmental protection.

In 2018 Guizhou promoted 4,600 flue-curing barns with biomass fuel and 500 with electric energy. In the future, they will also actively explore market-oriented operation methods, steadily pushing forward with clean energy replacement in tobacco curing, and implement energy-saving and emission reduction measures for tobacco leaf curing, striving to create a new pattern of tobacco leaf production.