Shanxi's stricken farmers get governmental assistance

The government of China is getting a $100 million Asian Development Bank (ADB) loan to help boost the incomes of poor farmers in Shanxi and to relieve strains on the environment caused by traditional agricultural practices.

The ADB Board of Directors has approved the loan for the Shanxi Integrated Agricultural Development Project. The funds will be used to provide credit and training to about 66,000 farm households in 26 counties in central and southern Shanxi.

The province has limited cultivatable land, and most farmers continue to practise traditional agriculture, growing low-value crops like wheat and maize that require heavy use of water and agrochemicals.

To address the widening income gap, the government is planning significant investments, including replacing grain production with high value crops which will raise incomes, reduce poverty and ease environmental pressure on soil and water. The return of millions of migrant workers to rural areas, including Shanxi, as a result of the global economic slowdown, has given added urgency to this task.

The project will provide farmers credit and technological know-how to produce high value annual and perennial crops, and to introduce livestock production practices that are more resource-efficient and environmentally sustainable.

Support will be given for on-farm processing facilities, such as fruit drying rooms, and to contract farmers to agro-enterprises which will help strengthen their links to markets.

Farmer associations will be strengthened to help market farm produce and disseminate new agriculture technologies, and assistance will be extended to raise the capacity of rural agriculture agencies to provide better services.