In recent years, investment in excess of three billion yuan has
been devoted to furthering agricultural industrialization, an
important part of the national program for enhancing the
international competitiveness of Chinese agriculture. In 2004 alone
the government set up 35 agricultural programs, supported by 30
million yuan from the Central Government, over 50 million yuan from
local governments, some 100 million yuan of bank loans and more
than 600 million yuan raised by enterprises and
farmers.
Now a pattern has been formed, with 582 key national enterprises
and over 2,000 key provincial enterprises as spearhead, and
agencies of various forms connecting farmers with the production
base. Leading enterprises in certain sectors, e.g., corn
processing, dairy industry and chicken production, have taken major
market share and play an increasingly important role in the
development and pricing of their respective industries.
Since 2003, the state has set up six types of demonstration project
for the industrialization of modern agro-technology, so as to
advance the use of advanced technology for agricultural production,
and enhance foreign earnings from exports of farm products.
These projects include industrialization of breeding and
cultivation of excellent new varieties and fine strains;
high-efficiency, eco-friendly planting and aquatic breeding
technology; water-saving and precision technologies; downstream
processing of agricultural and ancillary products; pollution-free
inputs (e.g., fertilizer and fodder) and the establishment of an
agricultural information platform. The "downstream processing of
main agricultural products project" was listed as an important
sci-tech project during the 2000-2005 Five-Year Plan period. It
aims at developing key technologies and equipment for downstream
processing of staple agricultural products, research into
integrated quality control systems and the quick testing of
agro-product technology and equipment. Once completed, some of
China's technological aspects will match the international advanced
level. Meanwhile, the "dairy industry development" and
"water-saving agriculture" projects have been listed among
important sci-tech application programs initiated by the Ministry
of Science and Technology.
