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Two-year-old Niu Niu's favourite snack is the lollipop sold for 0.1 yuan (1.25 cents) at the village store. It turns his tongue a different colour, but his mother says at least it's cheap.

"No problem," said the peasant woman in Northeast China's Jilin Province. "Rural children aren't that prone to diseases."

Their village in Fanjiatun Town in the city of Gongzhuling is not the poorest in China, but the locals are very cautious with money. Very often, they'd rather buy cheaper items of poorer quality rather than better things at higher prices.

This pleases the storekeeper Li Yulin. Li said 80 percent of his branded cigarettes are fake and he sells mouldy biscuits for 4 yuan (US$0.5) a kilo. "Half the downtown supermarket price," he said.

He never fears the villagers may sue him, because everyone is used to that. "They readily get what they need even if they know it's fake."

Officials are sent by the market watchdog to drop in from time to time for a routine check, but nobody seems to take quality too seriously. "In case anyone does, I'd just treat him to dinner and everything's settled at the table."

As the urban people are increasingly aware of consumers rights, fake goods are flowing into the rural market instead, posing threats to the country's 900 million farmers.

Between 2003 and 2004, 13 babies died of malnutrition and 189 others fell sick in Fuyang city, East China's Anhui Province, after being fed with milk powder of low-quality infant formula that was widely believed to be the best baby food available on the local market, the Ministry of Commerce said.

Besides, fake seeds, fertilizers and pesticides have brought about heavy economic losses to the rural families each year, it said.

A survey conducted by the ministry among 10,000 farmers last year showed at least 75 percent of them had bought fake goods some time in their lives.

The survey also found that farmers, who make up 70 percent of the Chinese population, contribute just 35 percent to the country's total retail sales, with per capita daily consumption of 6 yuan (75 cents).

But China's rural market is actually a "gold mine" as the farmers' per capita annual income has soared from 500 yuan (US$62.5) in 1985 to 3,000 yuan (US$375) in 2004, said Liao Jiancheng, an official in charge of market development with the Ministry of Commerce.

"So the main problem for the rural consumers today is where and how they can buy quality goods," he said.

China has listed the building of a sound rural market system as an important job in its building of new countryside, according to this year's No. 1 Document, which is issued by the central government annually in addressing rural issues relating to farmers' rights and interests.

The Ministry of Commerce started to build a huge rural retail network in 2005, which contain 250,000 outlets covering at least half of all the Chinese villages. The network is set to be completed by the end of 2007.

The General Administration for Industry and Commerce has also vowed to extend its hotline 12315 from cities to village-run stores to hear rural consumers' complaints and help victims of fake goods claim their losses.

There is still a long way to go before Chinese farmers can stand up and fight for their own rights, says Wu Gaohan, deputy secretary-general of China Consumers Association. "We need to change their shopping mentality so that they won't prefer cheap but fake goods to quality commodities."

(Xinhua News Agency March 16, 2006)