GO TO THE FIELDS

China finds ways and difficulties in spreading new farming techniques in rural areas By Tang Yuankai

COVER STORY

GO TO THE FIELDS

China finds ways and difficulties in spreading new farming techniques in rural areas By Tang Yuankai

At the end of 2011, Jiang Peize, a member of the Technical Task Force (TTF)in Xuanen County, central China’s Hubei Province, visited Yuheping Village in the county and showed local farmers how to use straw to protect their tea seedlings from winter frosts.

There are more than 300 TTF members in Xuanen. They help farmers deal with practical problems in production and spread new farming techniques in order to raise agricultural output and ef fi ciency.

The TTF system was created in Nanping City, Fujian Province, in 1999. Now, many more provinces have adopted the system,which proves successful in putting scientific and technological advances to good use in vast rural areas.

“I am just a conduit, someone who transfers new science and technology and new information to farmers,” said Xing Wenzhi,a TTF member in Songyuan City, northeast China’s Jilin Province.

Xing set up an experimental peanut cultivation demonstration base to offer local farmers technologies, seeds and supplies they need to plant peanuts. His efforts have helped increase local peanut production by up to 20 percent.

With a population of 2.8 million,Songyuan is the first city in Jilin Province to adopt the TTF system. From 2003, selected TTF members were sent to rural areas around the city to promote scientific and technological projects. To date, TTFs have completed more than 200 projects in the city and helped tens of thousands of rural households.

Hunan Province in central China introduced the TTF system in October 2005. So far, it has invested 6.7 billion yuan ($1.06 billion) in projects to advance agricultural science and technology and has promoted 6,384 new farming techniques and products. The Science and Technology Department of Hunan Province plans to establish 50 TTF-backed business chains in the province by 2015.

Now that the TTF has become more established, the Chinese Government is looking to expand its scope and effectiveness.

“The adoption of the TTF system is an important strategic move by the Central Government to dispel the urban-rural dichotomy and promote the industrialization,urbanization and modernization of rural areas,” said Zhang Laiwu,Vice Minister of Science and Technology at a national conference in 2011.

CROP-DUSTER: A TTF member in Shucheng County, Anhui Province, fi lls the tank of an unmanned helicopter with pesticide to spray on farmland on August 20, 2011

Examples

Professor Li Xiaolin at China Agricultural University is happy to see ever larger harvests of grain and the smiling faces of the farmers he has helped.

Since 2009, Li has spent more than 280 days every year offering technical services to farmers in Quzhou County, north China’s Hebei Province. According to Li, sometimes even local farmers asked him, “Why do you stay here so long?”

“We go to the countryside to help farmers. How can we go away without making some contribution,” Li said.

Though having been engaged in basic research for more than 20 years, Li said that in quite a long period in the past, his field of research was theoretical and his research achievements didn’t bring much practical bene fi ts to farmers.

“I feel my work is useful after beginning to work directly with farmers,” he said.

According to Li, in recent years a number of breakthroughs were made in agricultural science and technology but only a few of these breakthroughs actually led to changes in the fi elds.”It is a great pity,” he said.

Li’s co-worker Rui Yukui went to a rural area in Yushu City, Jilin Province, and stayed there for almost two years. He succeeded in helping local farmers increase their corn production by 20 percent.

“Previously, we had no idea if our work was really useful or not,” Rui said. “It feels good to know that our efforts are worthwhile.”

“Farmers de fi nitely need new techniques,”said Zhang Zhenghe, another professor at China Agricultural University. “More than 80 percent of farmers we surveyed recently agreed that the adoption of new techniques would help them make more money.”

GREEN CLASS: Na Weihua, a TTF member in Yongning County, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region,demonstrates seedling cultivation technology to farmers on November 29, 2011

Even so, it takes time for farmers to adopt new farming techniques on their own lands.“Normally, new techniques cost money and many farmers don’t want to pay for that and would rather stick to old methods of production,” Zhang said. “If we can develop some techniques that can be learnt as easily as possible, say a point-and-shoot camera, it will de fi nitely help their popularization.”

Professor Li echoed Zhang’s remarks,saying while some new techniques may seem very promising, they are not practical for ordinary farmers. “Only after we came to the fi elds did we fi nd out what farmers really needed,” he said.

Despite the clear bene fi ts of direct involvement in agricultural production, many researchers still spend more time writing papers and developing patents than researching what farmers really need in practice. “They don’t go to the fi elds at all. Instead, they just stay in the labs and normally their technologies are not that appropriate for the farmland,” Li said.

To change this situation, Li suggests that the evaluation system of agricultural researchers should be reformed. “The effectiveness of a new technique should be included as a very important factor for the evaluation,” he said.

Difficulties

China has the world’s largest number of programs and teams dedicated to agricultural education, research and popularization.Although the development of agricultural science and technology has made a great contribution in feeding China’s 1.3 billion people,the overall level of agricultural science and technology in the country is still low. Besides,there are still many dif fi culties in transferring new technologies from labs into practice.

In fact, China fi rst set up a system to promote agricultural science and technology in the 1950s under the planned economy. However, that system failed to develop smoothly.

In March 2011, at the Fourth Session of the 11th National People’s Congress, China’s top legislature, 158 lawmakers submitted fi ve separate motions on the modi fi cation of the Law on the Popularization of Farming Techniques, which said the current law was no longer effective in promoting agricultural science and technology.

Based on his long time experience conducting research in rural areas, Luo Xiaoyong,Vice Dean of the Agronomy and Plant Protection School of Qingdao Agricultural University in Shandong Province, believes the mismanagement of current agricultural science and technology popularization schemes is an increasingly serious problem.

“I spend less than 10 percent of my time on popularization of agricultural science and technology, because I have to handle a lot of administrative affairs,” said Yuan Yong, Director of the Agricultural Service Center of Dongxi Township in Jianyang City, southwest China’s Sichuan Province. There are altogether three people at the service center. But Yuan admitted even if they spent all their time on promoting new technologies, it wouldn’t help too much.

“Most of the young people and men in the villages have already migrated to big cities to work, only women and seniors stay in the villages. Most of them are not well-educated and don’t want to accept the new techniques,”Yuan said.

Similiar with the Agricultural Service Center in Dongxi Township, more than 50 percent of grassroots institutions engaged in promoting agricultural science and technology are managed by township governments.

According to the report in thePeople’s Daily, most of the institutions only receive 500 to 800 yuan ($79-127) in government subsidies every year. As a result, these cash-strapped institutions have gradually become marginalized.

In October 2011, the National Development and Reform Commission issued a statement, requiring local governments to clarify subsidy standards for townships agricultural science and technology popularization stations. At the same time, the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Science and Technology also issued notices,demanding local governments make plans to improve the conditions of these institutions.

In 2011, the Ministry of Agriculture held more than 100,000 training classes and trained 12.1 million farmers. The ministry said that in 2012, it will change the development modes of agricultural science and technology, increase technical service programs in rural areas and raise improve the management of organizations for agricultural science and technology.

“Efforts should be made to attract graduates from agricultural universities to work at grassroots level and transfer their knowledge into productivity,” Yuan said.