A wheat field.	Wang Xueren, Deputy Secretary of CPC Yunnan Provincial Committee, at a work conference.	Farm product processing is rapidly gaining pace in Yunnan.

Yunnan Province in southwest China is famous for its abundant agricultural and tourism resources. The June 2005 issue of China Today carried the article “Yunnan Gets Set for an Agricultural Boom,” which reported on the province’s agricultural development. As this year marks the beginning of the Eleventh Five-Year Plan, CT makes a retrospective appraisal of Yunnan’s agricultural development over the past five years.

Editor

The complex topography of Yunnan Province in Southwest China is a main source of its rich natural resources. The contrasts in climate its physical features produces within a relatively small area enable cultivation of a wide variety of economic crops. Yunnan is the largest coffee production base in China, and also its main point of export for cut flowers.

Agricultural development in Yunnan during the Tenth Five-Year Plan period (2001-2005) was based on the principles of science and technology and close observation of the market as a means to increasing incomes. In early 2005, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce started trial operations of the national “Market Project of Thousands of Villages and Townships.” Special funds were allocated to the project in Yunnan, and it produced some encouraging results. Despite serious droughts and other natural disasters in the region, in 2005 the net income of Yunnan farmers increased by 6.5 percent.

Steady Development of Characteristic Industries

After several decades of hard work, Yunnan now has pillar industries that include tobacco, sugar, tea and rubber production. The province has also used its rich resources to establish new forms of agricultural production, such as animal husbandry, vegetable and flower planting, medicinal herbs, and coffee and spice cultivation. All have contributed to Yunnan’s steady economic development.

Effective Adjustment of Agricultural Structure

Economic crop cultivation has outstripped that of grain over the past previous five years period, and the proportion of animal husbandry within provincial agricultural production has also increased. At the end of the Tenth Five-year Plan, there were green food development centers in 11 Yunnan prefectures, and 92 companies and institutions were certified as provincial pollution-free agricultural product producers. The 62 products of 28 companies in Yunnan were also recognized as green foods, and the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture certified 9 food products from 6 enterprises as organic.

Enhanced Agricultural Infrastructures

Agricultural infrastructure and facilities in Yunnan are relatively backward. In recent years, the Agriculture Department of the Yunnan provincial government has prioritized improvements in rural infrastructure and facilities. In the process of implementing strict measures to ensure protection of farmlands, it has upgraded medium and low yield rice terraces and farmlands and promoted construction of high output fields. Water conservancy projects established during the Tenth Five-Year Plan have also resulted in the building of large and medium-sized reservoirs.

Rapid Technological Progress

Results of research into agricultural technology have been applied in Yunnan in recent years. Innovations such as transgenic food safety supervision and protection of new and wild plants have also been initiated, and during the Tenth Five-Year Plan, 137 new crops were grown in the province. There are 57,000 personnel in Yunnan engaged in agricultural technology research and popularization, and during the Tenth Five-Year Plan, a total of 3.5 million Yunnan farmers received vocational training.

Labor Transfer Intensified

Since the end of 2003, when the Yunnan Provincial Labor Transfer and Export Leading Group was set up, an investment of about RMB 100 million has resulted in the employment of 5,000 full-time and part-time staff. The joint efforts of the agricultural, financial, labor insurance, poverty alleviation and communications departments, as well as the women’s federation, have had positive results as regards rural labor transfers. In 2003, a total 3.52 million rural laborers were assigned work in other provinces, and in 2004 this number increased to 4.15 million. Transfers in 2005 amounted to 5 million.

Industrialized Farming

The Agricultural Department of the Yunnan provincial government has always supported leading enterprises that are the fruit of agricultural development and the efforts of local farmers. Both contribute a large percentage of Yunnan’s commercial agricultural products. In 2005, agricultural products processed in Yunnan realized a total production value of RMB 43 billion -- an increase of 39 percent over that at the end of the Ninth Five-Year Plan. There are currently about 2,200 leading industrialized farming enterprises in Yunnan.

Increased Agricultural Product Export

Yunnan Province has rapidly increased its exports of agricultural products since China’s WTO entry; its agricultural industries now complement those of its neighboring countries. Over the past few years, Yunnan has pressed its geographical advantage in order to establish various agricultural and economic cooperation relationships with neighboring countries. In 2005, agricultural products became Yunnan’s second largest export commodity, having realized an export income of US $481 million -- an 18 percent increase over 2004. Each year, it exports more than 200 agricultural products to 88 countries and regions in the world, and ASEAN, the EU and Japan are its major export markets.

In the past decade, China’s WTO access, the establishment of the China-ASEAN Free Trade Zone, the signing of the Pan Pearl River Delta regional cooperation agreement, and the implement of GMS projects have been in Yunnan’s interests as regards economic development. All have increased Yunnan’s economic interaction with other parts of the world, and equipped it to proceed beyond its provincial and national borders to the global market.