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Industrial Restructuring Helps Boost Farmers Income
Facing the international competition and outdated growing patterns, China's booming agricultural industry is setting all out to address the core problems -- a slump of profits and the plummeting of farmers' income.
According to Monday's Chinadaily, better crop-growing mix, higher farming skills and stronger processing ability are all among the solutions.
"As the prices of a large number of China's major agricultural products have neared or even exceeded those in the global market, it is impossible for the country to add to the coffers of the farmers by raising the farm produce prices by a large margin," Han Jun, director of the Rural Development Research Institute under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences is quoted as saying.
The per capita annual income growth of the farmers plummeted from nine percent in the mid 1990s to 4.6 percent in 1997 and to 3.8 percent in 1999.
With the incremental opening up of the country's agricultural product market pending China's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), China has embarked on a painful process to overhaul the agricultural industry, the Daily said.
With a stockpile of 500 million tons of grain, the country is still facing a shortage of higher-quality, special wheat for the making of bread, cakes and biscuits. The Ministry of Agriculture has asked farmers to reserve more acreage for efficient cash crops and export-oriented agriculture.
To address the problem of irrational crop-growing mix and agricultural structure, the ministry required earlier this year that poor quality rice varieties in the South, winter wheat grown south of the Yangtze river and spring wheat in Northeast China be reduced.
With bumper harvests in five consecutive years since 1995, the largest agricultural country in the world is now looking for better ways to turn raw materials into better food.
By vigorously expanding farm produce processing, China is expected to resolve the farmers' difficulty in selling their products, down-sizing stockpiles and helping reverse the downward trends in the prices of raw agricultural products, according to Chinadaily.
Han Jun proposed a model for co-operation between farmers and agricultural product processing enterprises, in which agriculture will become the "first workshop" where farmers-turned "workers" grow what the market needs with financial and informational input from the businesses.
China's investment in application and dissemination of advanced agricultural technology and farming skills will be increased in the years to come. New techniques, especially water-saving, cost-effective technology and variety in crops and breeds will spread to more areas.
The Chinese Government is also to simplify administrative structure in rural areas and eliminate the random and irrational fees and measures imposed on farmers, Chinadaily said.
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