AN OVERVIEW OF PLASTICULTURE AND ITS DEVELOPMENT IN CHINA

Once humankind appeared on the earth, agriculture started. As our ancestors became wiser and more civilized, agriculture was getting more developed. Since thousands years have been passed, the world has been changed greatly. The meaning of agriculture and its concept is quite different than ever before. With the industrial development and rapid population growth in the world, agriculture becomes a very important issue of how to feed such quickly growing people and how to feed a population of 7 billion today living on limited cultivated farmland. This is a great challenge with a heavy task given to those who are working and doing the research in agriculture. This paper provides some ideas about the protected agriculture and its development in China, discussing its past, present, and future. This paper is a call to those working in an important sector to realize the mission and to find some new farming patterns for agricultural development in the future. Furthermore, China is one of the largest countries in the world with 80% of its population in rural areas and by using only 7% of the world-cultivated land to feed 22% of the world population. Clearly we need to cooperate closely, effectively and beneficially to produce enough food and plasticultural products to meet our demands. This paper indicates that plasticulture is one of the most efficient farming patterns for agricultural sustainability and agricultural development at this stage.