The supply of farm produce in China has now been pulled out of a shortage, but the pressure the sector bears is not completely relieved with the increasing population and shrinking resources. And the domestic market calls for the sector to provide not only sufficient food, but also high-quality and various products.

The country's demand for grain is expected to total 700 million tons in 2030 when its population grows to 1.6 billion, with per capita grain output of 400 kilograms.

However, the area of arable land will decline by 400,000 hectares annually. By 2030, the per capita arable land and water resources may drop by one-fourth, experts warned.

This means the grain output on per hectare has to increase by more than 50 percent at that time, according to Zhao Chunjiang, director of Beijing Agriculture Information Technology Research Center.

As a developing country, China can not afford to expand the production scale extensively, instead, it should focus on developing sciences and technologies that can provide products with high output, low cost and high quality, and prevent the environment from worsening, he added.

The Chinese Government announced at the National Conference of Agro-technology held last week that China plans to narrow the gap between its agro-technology development and the world top level within 50 years. The conference was the largest the country has ever held in the past 20 years. "Biotechnology and the information technology will lead the growth of agriculture in the 21 century as chemistry and machinery did in the last century," said Zhao, who also works for the National High-Tech R&D Program, or "863 Program."

The achievements of gene technologies will open a new outlet to foster new strains of plants and develop more breeds of livestock and aquatic products, he said.

More and more fertilizers, feeds, pesticides, vaccines and even food will be made out of microbes, and the country may see a booming business on the usage of microbes, he added.

Information and computer technologies provide an easy way to monitor the change of resources and environment, to forecast the disasters and estimate the output, Zhao noted.

Some farmers in developed areas of China collect the market information on line and even use computers in farming.

However, other experts pointed out that the country's 1.2 million agro-science technicians in rural areas didn't play their role to the full. So, more efforts shall be made to help farmers have easy access to technologies and research findings.

The government will also work to reduce the economic risks farmers will face when applying new technologies because their income still remains low.

Science and technology have contributed 40 percent to the growth of the agricultural sector in China, up from 27 percent 20 years ago. But the percentage is as high as 60 to 80 percent in developed countries.

Lack of money is the main factor that slows down the development of agro-technologies, said Zhu Lilan, Minister of Science and Technology, adding that the government will increase investment in the research of agro-sciences.

(China Daily 01/25/01)