A joint China-UN multi-million dollar project is expected to
provide millions of Chinese farmers with greater access to latest
agricultural technologies and help them boost their meager
incomes.
The two sides inked an agreement yesterday in Urumqi, capital of
northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, to increase
their joint investment in a rural poverty alleviation project for
technology promotion.
The project brings together the UN Development Program (UNDP),
China's Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), and the China
International Center for Economic and Technical Exchanges (CICETE)
under the Ministry of Commerce.
According to yesterday's agreement, an additional US$3.4 million
-- US$480,000 from the UNDP, US$2.4 million from MOST, and
US$520,000 from Stora Enso, a multinational paper products company
based in Europe -- will be invested in the project.
Named "Alleviating Rural Poverty Through Innovative Technology
Transfer," the four-year project aims to introduce farmers to
innovative, environmentally-friendly technologies in order to
increase their income and promote sustainable rural
development.
Launched in April 2006 with a starting budget of US$4 million
(US$1 million from the UNDP and US$3 million from MOST), the
project will support China's Technical Task Force (TTF)
initiatives. The TTFs will become a critical element in diverse
market-oriented systems that will seek to meet the needs of
farmers, farm systems and rural communities.
"The TTFs focus on introducing market mechanisms to traditional
agriculture," said Liu Yanhua, vice minister of science and
technology.
Liu pointed out that since 2002, a total of 593 counties across
24 provinces have launched pilot projects on the new
market-oriented TTF mechanisms.
According to Liu, 23,000 TTF personnel were dispatched to
implement the project and 5.84 million farmers received technical
training in 2005 with an average income rise of 20 percent for the
farmers concerned.
"The project is very timely as it is closely connected to the
Chinese government's commitment to building a new socialist
countryside by applying scientific development approaches," said
Khalid Malik, UN resident coordinator and UNDP resident
representative in China. "I believe the project will not only help
farmers develop new business models to increase their income, but
also assist China in establishing new models of production to
sustain its high growth rate," he added.
(Xinhua News Agency September 14, 2006)