September 2, 2010

China's agricultural demonstration centres needs to focus on grain production

Agricultural demonstration centres should focus more on grain production rather than non-edible crops and plants, said China's Vice Agriculture Minister Wei Chao'an.

Wei made the statement at a seminar in Yinchuan, capital city of northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.

The two-day seminar focused on the development of modern agriculture and construction of modern agricultural demonstration centres in the country.

Many of China's national demonstration centres were too focused on non-edible crops and plants or tourism instead of grain production, which is a core agricultural concern, Wei said.

Agricultural demonstration centres have played an important role in the development of new technologies and crop varieties as well as improving productivity, which had helped increase grain output and farmers' income, said Wei.

However, the centres should not charge an entry fee for farmers as this would weaken the purpose of the centres, he added.

China has more than 9,000 agricultural demonstration centres in 18 provinces, municipalities or regions, totalling 1.83 million hectares, and the annual output of these centres has reached RMB312.7 billion (US$45.9 billion).

The ministry of agriculture released a list of 51 national modern demonstration centres in August to promote their demonstrative role.

China's total grain demand is expected to reach 572.5 million tonnes by 2020, and to maintain a food self-sufficiency rate of 95%, at least 540 million tonnes of grain would be needed by then, Zhang Ping, minister in charge of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said last Thursday (Aug 26).