Guangzhou's Baiyun District Education Bureau organized a work conference in a luxury hotel in Zengcheng on the outskirts of Guangzhou last month.

But a farmer complained, via the Internet, to the Guangzhou municipal government, asking why the education bureau organized such a conference in Zengcheng. "Is this some sort of jolly in the guise of a conference?" he asked in his message.

The district education bureau later had to explain that they wanted to learn successful teaching methods from their Zengcheng counterparts and that the conference had also attracted many well-known experts and government officials.

The anonymous farmer that challenged the district education bureau is just one of the growing numbers of farmers who are now using the Internet to express their opinions regarding government operations in Guangzhou.

According to Tang Wangsheng, deputy director of the Guangzhou Municipal Information Centre, many farmers in Guangzhou have purchased computers and surf the Internet at home.

To help popularize Internet technology in the city's rural areas and allow more farmers to access online information, the Guangzhou municipal government plans to construct a total of 1,177 Internet service centres in all villages before the end of 2006.

Meanwhile, each village will have an Internet training centre to teach local farmers how to make full use of the Net, Tang told a press conference yesterday.

Every staff member in township governments and neighbourhood committees will have a computer in his or her office by the end of 2006.

"The internet service will also act as a bridge to help link government departments to farmers as many government departments and bureaux have built their own websites and open online service," Tang said.

"It also helps prevent corruption," he added.

(China Daily September 8, 2005)