Elevated skills enrich farmers through various cooperatives

As the central government calls for consolidating the country's agricultural foundation, Zhan Zhaojie, a village Party chief in Sichuan province, marvels at his village's progress.

Zhan said that with the Wuyuan breeding and farming cooperative in operation, their Qilong village has attracted over 90 million yuan ($13.2 million) in farmers' capital, cultivating 23 specialty homestays and receiving 200,000 tourists annually.

With the help of local training institution Mengdingshan Academy for Cooperative Development, their cooperative — of which Zhan is the director-general — has transformed from a loose alliance into a profit-sharing community engaging in green cultivation.

"With our elevated skills, our village's collective income has surpassed 1 million yuan for three consecutive years, making it a renowned role model in Hongxing town under Mingshan district in Ya'an," Zhan said.

This year's Government Work Report, passed in March by China's top legislature, has called for the solid promotion of vitalization in rural areas, further consolidating the foundation of agriculture and rural areas.

Zhan said they have come to see that the farmers' cooperative, as a mutual-aid form in developing modern agriculture with scaled operations, is an effective path for agricultural modernization.

On April 17, supported by the China Foundation for Rural Development, the High-Quality Development Conference of Farmers' Cooperatives was held in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan, with a theme to shift the development of farmers' cooperatives from quantity growth to quality improvement.

Hosted by Mengdingshan Academy, the conference attracted agriculture experts, delegates of farmers' cooperatives, and guests from across the country, exploring ways to bolster farmers' cooperatives in the new era.

Zhan said that with varying levels of resources in different regions, and diverse categories of agricultural industries, China is witnessing its farmers' cooperatives progress steadily by cultivating characteristic industries.

The Law on Farmers' Professional Cooperatives came into force on July 1, 2007 with a view to regulate the organization and acts of these cooperatives.

According to data from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, there are currently some 2.14 million farmers' cooperatives registered nationwide according to the law.

With 54.7 percent engaged in planting, 25.8 percent in breeding, 7.7 percent in the services industry and 11.8 percent in forestry and other industries, the cooperatives have seen their businesses expand steadily into such areas as cash crops, livestock and poultry, aquaculture and facility agriculture.

Qiao Chuanjun, 55, organized a cooperative farm in Yu'an district of Lu'an in Anhui province by planting peach trees on 64 hectares of land. The five-member cooperative earned an annual income of 3 million yuan.

Zhang Chuanyin, having engaged in agricultural cultivation for over 40 years, formed a cooperative farm in Liuzhi special district in Guizhou province by planting garlic and ginger.

Working on 31.4 hectares of land in Mugang town with the help of over 100 farmers, Zhang said they have managed to achieve total sales of 6 million yuan each year with ginger being exported to Indonesia, Thailand and Dubai.

However, Guo Xiaoming, a member of the expert advisory committee for rural vitalization under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs and a researcher at the Sichuan Academy of Social Sciences, said at the conference that the problems of farmers' cooperatives being "large but not strong, many but not excellent" are still prominent.

It is high time to turn external expansion into internal improvement, he said.

Wang Guangyuan, executive dean of Mengdingshan Academy, said the development quality of farmers' cooperatives needs to be raised.

hanjingyan@chinadaily.com.cn