Jilin province's leaders believe that harvests are not just the concern of farmers, the Party secretary recently commented, because they have a lot to do with price stability and the province's economy overall.

The province had an outstanding harvest this year, Sun Zhengcai pointed out, and, "The harvest is the result of good policies and hard work by both the governments and the farmers."

The remark came during Sun's visit to the city of Yushu, where he added, "It's only when the farmers are active and getting rich through harvests that the nation's food security can be assured."

In one village outside Yushu, farmers now use machines for everything from plowing to harvesting. Xie Dalin told Sun that he farmed 30 hectares this year, and can expect a net income of around 300,000 yuan ($47,000).

"And agronomists have contributed a lot to that."

But Jilin's governor, Wang Rulin, has said that out-of-date infrastructure is still a major problem.

Wang said, the provincial government is making a great effort to improve infrastructure and develop industrial agriculture. It wants to add more than 800,000 hectares of irrigated land by the end of the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015), and produce 35 billion kilograms of grain a year.

Sun has asked local agriculture authorities to provide better services to farmers, such as technical training, more information, and financial planning.

He said that farmers actually should keep a closer eye on market trends.

Sun visited a large chicken farm in the Wukeshu Economic Development Zone, near the provincial capital Changchun, being built at a cost of nearly 8 billion yuan. It is supposed to start operation by the end of this month, and has a capacity of raising 100 million chickens.

Sun also visited a greenhouse development in the village of Huzhu, where he said the greenhouse vegetable business is an important sign of economic improvements in the countryside and a new source of income for farmers.

(China Daily 10/21/2011 page15)