China is the country with the largest population in the world, and the majority part of this population are farmers. Facing a severe shortage of water resources and farming land, China must not only use seven percent arable land of the world to feed one fourth of the world population, but also cope with the challenges resulting from its accession to WTO. To the end, China has to rely on science and technology to promote its agricultural industrialization and modernization, Xu Guanhua, minister of science and technology, said at a press conference sponsored by the State Council Information Office on May 29.

Wei Jianguo, assistant to the minister of foreign trade and economic cooperation and Cheng Andong, governor of Shaanxi Province, also briefed the press on foreign trade and cooperation in the sector of agricultural technology as well as on the 8th China Yangling High-tech Fair, scheduled on November 5-9.

“China has made remarkable progress in bio-agricultural technology,” said Xu. “We have so far cloned about 100 genes from various species and established a genetic improvement technology system for most major crops. We have acquired 180 kinds of trans-genes plants with different features and 15 are under mid-term test or mass planting test.”

In terms of trans-genes plants, anti-worm rice, potato and corn are under field test. Around 1.6 million hectares of anti-virus trans-genes tobacco are planted. Anti-worm cotton has been applied in a relatively large scale. Following the successful cloning of embryo cell and cattle, pig, sheep and rabbit, China has also developed rabbit with human interferon gene, pig with cattle growth hormone.

The minister expressed his hope that China will catch up with the developed countries in realizing biotechnology industrialization by 2005.

“We have applied information technology into agriculture and are happy to see satisfactory results even it is used in some very less-developed regions,” he said.

China has developed an Agricultural Expert system with many branches to cover field management, fertilizer application, and control of worms and diseases for wheat, rice, cotton and corn; chicken and pig farming; and water irrigation. Hunan, for example, has witnessed a big increase in its agricultural output.

The nation’s capacity in research and development of new fertilizer and new farming materials has also remarkably increased. From 1993 to 1996, plastic membrane was adopted in 23 million hectares of farmland. Various advanced green houses have been set up. The growing and possessing technique of tomato, cucumber and flowers are already of world advanced level.

Over the last decade, various water-saving irrigation technology have been employed in different regions. By the end of 1998, over 15 million hectares of farmland had adopted water-saving irrigation. The state has highlighted modern agriculture and bio-agricultural technology in the 863 Program and will increase input in agricultural technology development and application.

“We wish to build up a modern agriculture and sharpen its competitive edge with high-tech application so as to enable our traditional agriculture to take an enormous leap forward,” Xu said.

(www.china.org.cn by Xu Zhiquan 05/30/2001)