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Technologies to Help Chinese Farmers Earn More
China's 800 million farmers, which have relatively low income now, will make more money by having easier access to new technologies in the next five to 10 years, a policy consultant said Friday.
The technological updating is to play a key role in China's agriculture restructuring that is regarded as a major solution to the increase of farmers' income, said Pan Shengzhou, bureau director of the Policy Research Department under the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC).
Communication technology will help build information and financial exchange channels, which are badly needed in the development of a nationwide commercial market within rural areas, Pan added.
The country has launched several recoverable satellites carrying plant seeds into outer space since the 1980s and about 500 new strains of agricultural plants have been grown, equal to one-fourth of all strains cultivated with this technology in the world.
"However, farmers, especially those in remote villages, still have limited access to new technologies and some basic skills are seldom known," Pan said.
According to an expert with the Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Northeast China's Jilin Province, many farms are fertilized the same way over and over again neglecting the exact need of different types of soil and plants and this causes pollution of water and earth.
"I do think 1.2 million agro-science technicians in China's rural areas need to improve their performance," Pan said.
"Only words can not persuade farmers to try new techniques. Those technicians can apply the technologies in an experimental farm," he said, "Let the facts speak for itself."
The financial risk that comes with technological innovation is another stumbling stone as Chinese farmers are relatively poor, said an official with the Ministry of Agriculture.
The government has promoted preferential policies to encourage enterprises to cooperate with individual farmers in a bid to reduce the risks of applying new technologies, he added.
Blame was also laid on research institutes because a number of their research findings do not meet the needs of farmers.
However, scientists also explained that they can not conduct research and market businesses.
"The government plans to change some research institutes into high-tech firms such as those developing technologies using flowers, fertilizer, feeds and product processing," said a related official with the Ministry of Science and Technology.
Agencies introducing research findings from the institutes to farmers and enterprises will boom in the near future, Pan noted.
The income of China's rural residents once soared by 16.5 percent annually from 1978 to 1984, thanks to the country's economic reform. But its growth slowed annually since 1997, which has aroused much attention.
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