Information-to-village pilot program to cover all provinces nationwide next year
To accelerate the development of rural informatization, China will speed up the pilot program for bringing information to villages and households. The plan is to arrange about 10 new pilot provinces this year, cover all provinces next year, expand to more than 1/10 of counties in 2017, and strive to basically cover all counties and administrative villages by 2020.
This was learned by the reporter at the national information-to-village and household pilot work promotion meeting held by the Ministry of Agriculture from the 6th to the 7th in Suichang County, Lishui City, Zhejiang Province.
Vice Minister of Agriculture Chen Xiaohua said at the meeting that bringing information to villages and households and promoting the deep integration of the Internet's innovative achievements with agricultural production, operation, management and services is of great significance for transforming the mode of agricultural development and innovating the mode of agricultural administrative management. Ultimately, the country's 600,000 administrative villages will be connected into one large network, forming agricultural big data, improving the government's decision-making capacity and level, and precisely pushing information to farmers and new types of agricultural business entities.
It is understood that since China launched the information-to-village and household pilot in 2014 in 10 pilot provinces and cities including Beijing and Liaoning, and 22 pilot counties, nearly 4,000 Yihong information societies have been built and put into operation, covering more than 60% of the administrative villages in the pilot counties. Public welfare services, convenience services, e-commerce and training and experience services have been carried out, and some relatively successful market-oriented operation models have been explored.
Chen Xiaohua said that advancing the bringing of information to villages and households is an urgent need to narrow the urban-rural digital divide. There are still more than 50,000 administrative villages in rural areas without broadband access, fewer than 30% of rural households own computers, and more than 70% of farmers still do not use the Internet. It is estimated that last year the operating revenue of agricultural product e-commerce reached more than 100 billion yuan, accounting for about 3% of total agricultural product sales.
It is reported that this year the Ministry of Agriculture will vigorously promote the information-to-village and household pilot. It will accelerate the upgrading and transformation of the 12316 public welfare service hotline to provide farmers with convenient information services on agricultural technology, markets and more. It will strengthen cooperation with telecommunications, banking, insurance, supply and marketing, water, electricity and gas units so that farmers can enjoy convenient services without leaving their villages. It will promote e-commerce into villages and strengthen training and experience services. At the same time, it will explore and innovate information monitoring methods, establish and improve market-oriented operation mechanisms, strengthen the building of risk prevention and control systems, and accelerate the development and operation of a unified national platform.