Lin HuiLong

Trajectory and prospect of China’sprataculture

Pratacultural science refers to the study of grassland agriculture, which is a branch of agricultural science. It was not until 1980s that the modern prataculture took shape in China although the country has a long history of grassland agriculture. China has developed its own discipline system of pratacultural science in assimilating the academic tradition of Europe, North America and Russia. The pratacultural science of China consists of the studies of three major parts, namely the three factor groups (the biotic, abiotic and social factor groups), three interfaces (the plant-land interface, the pasture-livestock interface and the pasture/animal-market interface), and four production subsystems (the pre-plant production, the plant production, the animal production and the post-biotic production subsystems). The functioning of pratacultural science is maintained by its multidimensional structure. In the past three decades, the consumption of cereals as food by Chinese people has been declining while that of food of animal origin has been increasing rapidly, leading to a sharp increase in the demand for feed and forage crops. Grassland agriculture, with its main outputs based on vegetative growth rather than reproductive growth of plants, is more efficient as well as more ecological than the arable agriculture only relying on grain production. Grassland agriculture is bound to gradually replace the traditional arable agriculture in China, becoming the main stream of the agriculture of China, and thus to mitigate the problems in Chinas agricultural development. With the demand by the society and the unprecedented support from the national government, Chinas modern pratacultural science has a never-had opportunity for its develop. Currently China is at a leading position in some research areas of pratacultural science in the world.