East China’s Jiangsu has implemented the requirements of the Central Government on rural revitalization in recent years to inject a steady stream of driving force into the vast rural areas.
Chen Chuan-shui, who used to work as a bricklayer, is now earning about 400,000 yuan in annual income from his strawberry picking business. The income has more than quadrupled his earnings in the past years and enabled his family live a well-to-do life.
Making big money from growing strawberry is not new for the farmers in Fujiabian, Lishui district, Nanjing city.
Fujiabian has 3,000 acres of large-scale, high-quality strawberry planting base, enabling the village to rely on "Strawberry Culture Festival" and other agricultural festivals to start rural tourism brands, farm music, bed and breakfast and other supporting industries for the development of the Countryside Experience Zone.
The villagers have got flat wallets from the expansion of the industrial development. In 2017, a total of 33 households in Fujiaba were lifted out of poverty and more than 60% of the villagers were engaged in strawberry growing and other related work.
The change in Fujiabian is typical of Jiangsu's accelerated development of leisure and sightseeing agriculture. In 2017, the province's leisure agriculture received more than 150 million tourists with a combined income of more than 42 billion yuan.
Given that the integration of "leisure + agriculture" expands the value chain of the agricultural industrial chain, then "technology + agriculture" is driving the overall improvement of agricultural quality and competitiveness.
In Xuyi county, the integration of the Internet of Things and agriculture has greatly improved the yield and quality of crayfish by providing the most suitable growth environment through automatic aeration and temperature control.
In the flower planting base of Wujin District, Changzhou city, a technician manipulates the computer to complete the drilling, loading and planting. The efficiency is 100 times higher than manual operation, and the cost is saved by 30% while guaranteeing the flower quality.
In recent years, by focusing on the revitalization strategy of rural areas through the Internet plus and tourism plus strategies, Jiangsu has vigorously pushed forward the structural reform of the agricultural supply-side and enabled more new technologies, new models, new formats and new achievements to take root in rural areas.
The watermelon from Dongtai, the garlic from Pizhou, the grapes from Jurong, the peaches from Yangshan of Wuxi and the Yangcheng Lake hairy crabs from Suzhou have gained clustering effects in the development of the rural economy.
At present, 60% of the province's agricultural production has been digitalized with 162 distinctive industries at the county level posting more than 1 billion yuan of annual output value. In 2017, the province’s online sales of agricultural products increased by 28%, reaching 36.4 billion yuan in total.
Jiangsu will focus on structural adjustment this year to promote the innovation and transformation of agricultural science and technology and promote the acceleration of agricultural modernization.
Since the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in October first advanced the rural revitalization strategy, the Central Rural Work Conference has accorded high priority to the strategy's implementation. And this year's No 1 central document has prescribed measures to facilitate the implementation of the strategy in an all-round way.
Thanks to rural and agricultural modernization in China, rural residents' production capacity and living conditions have been continuously improving. Also, the urban-rural income gap has been narrowing, and the poverty alleviation campaign has achieved great results, with the infrastructure in rural areas upgraded and rural basic social services remarkably improved.
The goal of the rural revitalization strategy is in line with the "Two Centennial Goals" set out in the 19th Party Congress report, namely China is committed to building a moderately prosperous society by 2021, and a fully developed and powerful nation by 2049.
(Source:Jiangsu International Channel)
