Heilongjiang province, located in northeast China, has provided technical training and professional instruction for farmers through online channels amid the pneumonia outbreak.

The province has invited 17 chief experts and 480 scientists to teach farmers agricultural skills and answer their questions about farming on the WeChat platform as well as by means of live broadcasts on television and mobile phones.

TV and mobile phone broadcasts altogether not only attract more viewers, they can also suit the needs of farmers from different age groups, said Liu Di, with the Heilongjiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences, explaining that many old villagers are not that familiar with cell phones.

A live program pertaining to agricultural skills introduced by the local broadcasting and TV station had been viewed 6.9 million times by March 5, receiving over 7,500 messages from the viewers.

According to Liu, the province has provided courses for experts to improve their skills in employing technologies. “Nowadays, online broadcasts may attract as many as several thousand viewers when in the past only about 100 people would take the offline courses in the villages,” said Ni Shujun, who has received the training and become better at utilizing the live streaming technology.

The province will provide training for 1.5 million farmers through various channels by the end of March, as estimated by the department of agriculture and rural affairs of Heilongjiang province.