Agriculture

    Zhejiang is honored the land of rice and fish, homeland of silk, land of culture relics and the attractive travel place. Located in the southeast of China, Zhejiang has a total coastline of kilometers long on the north of The Tai Lake and East Sea to the east. The total area of the province is 101800 square meters covering 1.06% of the whole area of China that is one of the smallest provinces in the country. The mountainous regions and hills cover 70.4% land of the province with plains and basins 23.2% and lakes and rivers 6.4%. The character of the geography is 70% of the province is hills, 10% waters and 20% farmland. There are 24.11 million mu farmland including 19.93 million mu of paddy fields, 4.18 million mu of dry land. And the per farmland is only 0.54 mu.
    Zhejiang agriculture has a long history with advantageous conditions. It is a comprehensive agricultural zone where agriculture, fishery, forestry and animal husbandry. The paddy is the main corn. Economic crops include the silkworm, tea, tangerine, cotton, sugarcane, cole, vegetable and the edible mushroom. In 2002, the production of tea ranks the second in China with silkworm first and tangerine second. Zhejiang is the production basis of the country and 17.19 million pigs was sold in this year. The aquatic production reached 4.8 million tons with 714,000 tons of freshwater products that makes Zhejiang the third base of freshwater fish in China.
    In recent years, the province has further improved the agricultural infrastructure developing the benefit agriculture and its industrialization, which has explored the agriculture resources further and adjusted the construction of agriculture. More famous agricultural products have appeared. All kinds of agriculture bases of a total area of 9 million mu have been set up with the following as the main, namely grains and oil, aquatic products, fruits, silkworm, bamboo, poultry, vegetables, tea, edible mushrooms and flowers. 46 towns have been honored “the hometown of China’s special local products” and 124 agricultural products have been honored the famous brand in the Fourth Agriculture Exposition. 139 agriculture gardens have been built with a total area of 150000 mu and 1493 gardens of all kinds with a total area of nearly 2 million mu. The consulting hotlines have been opened in 9 cities and more than 50 towns in the province to serve the farmers. The agriculture of Zhejiang province has cooperation with more than 100 countries and regions. In 2002, the actually used foreign capital is 166.652 million dollars and the advantages of extroversion are more and more available now. In 2002, the whole value of agriculture in Zhejiang province is 110.2 billion yuan and the net income of per farmer has reached 4940 yuan.
    The problems during the development and after the access to WTO of agriculture are big challenge to the province. With the following as the targets, namely to fast the adjustment of the construction of agriculture, to improve the competition, to increase the income of per farmer, to build the green agriculture and to make agriculture develop persistently, during “the tenth 5-year plan”, Zhejiang will build “the big province of elaborate agriculture” and “the strong province of profit agriculture” to further cooperate with foreign partners. The investment of agriculture will mainly concentrate on the following fields, namely: the production of seeds and young plants of good quality, the technology of keeping the agricultural products and by products fresh, the equipment and technology for storage and machining, the zoological agriculture poison and technology of the prevention and cure of poisonous biology, the production of germ projects of plants and animals, the equipment for centralized and profitable production, the technology and equipment for the production of effective fertilizers, the zoological products for raising the animals, the additive of feeding stuff, the new agriculture poison that is effective, low poisonous and safe and the information system in the countryside, etc. The government will invest more to improve the facilities and technology of agriculture and to set up a good environment to attract more investment from domestic and abroad.

1. Perfect the agriculture infrastructure and uplift the production environment. Firstly, the government will support the rebuild and construction of big or important water conservancy projects including the construction of the big projects for preventing the flood and water logging, the projects of conserving the water and soil and the protection forest system; secondly, the government will continue to support and protect the basic farmland and to rebuild its infrastructure. The basic agriculture infrastructure will be improved, and the good quality, characteristic and green will be the most important. Thirdly, the government will support the construction of advanced agriculture equipment, increase the investment of all kinds of modern intelligent equipment and encourage the farmers to improve the production environment and equipment.
The target is to build the good environment for the development of modern agriculture.

2. Support the demonstration and spread of the results of agriculture research. To support the research of agriculture and improve the quality and quantity of the research and to support the research, introduce and spread of the new variety and technology will be the main point. The government will concentrate on the foster of the private scientific and technology agriculture companies to guide the companies or farmers to set up the science and technology service industry and urge the cooperation of technology, scientific research and spread. The market competition and the technology in agriculture products should be improved. More agriculture demonstration zones mainly including “the seeds and young plants project”,” the demonstration zone of high-tech ” and “demonstration zones of agriculture technology” should be set up and used to show the advanced seeds and technology to farmers. In this way, farmers will master the high technology rapidly and the content of technology in agriculture will be improved.

3. Support the development of the processing of agriculture products.
To use the advantage of agriculture resources in our province and the competition of agricultural products in the market, the government will concentrate on the foster of the processing companies of agricultural products that brings much power to the adjustment of agriculture construction. Some skeleton companies and groups should develop rapidly, which can drive the development of the economy of the regions or the industry. The following will be the most important to be supported: firstly, set up a series of characteristic industry gardens of the process of agricultural products; secondly, according to the principle of “help it better, help it bigger and help it stronger”, support the technology renovation and expands of production scale of the most important companies and improve the level of processing industry; thirdly, support the development of extroversion of agriculture and set up some agriculture bases. To foster the international market and extend the distribution ways.

4. Support the construction of service system of agriculture. The target is to support the construction of the market system of agricultural products and the projects of creating more famous brands. The construction of big wholesale markets and the development of supermarkets, selling places of agricultural products will be encouraged.

5. Support the protection and cure of agriculture environment. Firstly, the construction of green agriculture should start and the protection zone of green agriculture should be set. The construction of demonstration of green agriculture and the construction of zoological agriculture base should be set up. The agriculture pollution should be solved and the construction of the zoological zones of stock raising should be built. The government will guide the breeding of poultry and the aquatic products to prevent the agriculture pollution resulting from the breeding. The government will go further to solve the pollution caused by the fertilizer, poison, animal drugs and additive of feedstuff, etc. Secondly, the government will try its best to solve the pollution of big rivers, the conservation of soil and water and the construction of zoological forest to make the use and protection of natural resources and the optimization of agriculture step into a good cycle.