Computers and the Internet are no longer novelties to many Chinese farmers, as agricultural modernization comes true in many regions, from the suburbs of Beijing and Tianjin to the northwestern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

More than 100 agriculture information officials and specialists witnessed the successful application of information technology (IT) in agriculture recently at a branch of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps in the southern part of the autonomous region, near the Taklimakan Desert, the world's second largest.

The corps has employed state-of-the-art information technology in seeding, irrigation and data collection for soil property analysis.

Gao Zuoyu, an official in charge of information work with the Ministry of Agriculture, praised the corps as "successful" and " exemplary" in its application of IT in agricultural production.

He said IT has become a new driving force in the allocation of agricultural resources, upgrading traditional agriculture and improvement of productivity since China first proposed "information agriculture" 10 years ago.

In 1995, the Ministry of Agriculture began building a national agricultural database and application system for macro-regulation and control, as well as forecasts of natural calamities, plant diseases, pests, sales of farm produce and market demands.

"Computerized agriculture," an intelligent agricultural information project launched by the Ministry of Science and Technology in 1996, has covered more than 3 million hectares of farmland nationwide, including 14 provinces and cities in the underdeveloped western region.

Rural communication has topped the agenda of the State Council, China's cabinet, this year.

At a working conference on agricultural information work in May, China decided to build five information service systems dedicated to agricultural monitoring and early-warning.

The country will also extend a national agricultural information service network into rural counties and villages.

Meanwhile, government administrations at all levels have set up agricultural information service departments to collect data on agricultural production, pricing, natural calamities, plant diseases, pests and the farmers' incomes.

(China Daily October 8, 2004)