Information technology helps agriculture overtake on the curve

Agricultural informatization is both an important component of the country's overall informatization and an inherent requirement for developing modern agriculture. Informatization plays an important pulling and driving role in accelerating the transformation of agricultural development methods and building modern agriculture, and is the commanding height of modern agricultural development.

In recent years, China's agricultural informatization has achieved remarkable results. Agricultural information services have made obvious progress, the four-level agricultural portal website group covering the ministry, province, prefecture and county has basically been completed, and agriculture-related websites have reached more than 40,000; the 12316 "three rural" information service system is gradually taking shape, with its service scope covering more than 1/3 of farming households nationwide. The pace of promoting and applying agricultural information technology has accelerated noticeably. Breakthroughs have been made in the application of modern information technologies such as the Internet of Things, big data, cloud computing and mobile internet in agriculture. The rapid development of agricultural product e-commerce is remarkable; in 2013 the transaction volume already exceeded 50 billion yuan, triggering profound changes in the traditional circulation methods of agricultural products.

At present, the development of agricultural informatization is facing rare opportunities and many challenges. The central government has made clear arrangements, and farmers have strong demand. The 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China for the first time placed informatization alongside industrialization, urbanization and agricultural modernization, and made the major deployment of "synchronizing the four modernizations." Practice at home and abroad shows that the advancement of agricultural modernization increasingly depends on the development of informatization, and the degree of informatization development has become an important symbol of the level of agricultural modernization.

From the perspective of challenges, China's agricultural informatization still lags considerably behind advanced developed countries and behind other industries in China. At present, more than 50,000 administrative villages still lack broadband access, the proportion of farmer households owning computers is less than 30%, and more than 70% of farmers still do not use the internet. The application of information technology in agriculture mostly remains at the trial and demonstration stage, the dominant position of enterprises in innovation has not been fully established, and the willingness to innovate in agricultural information technology is not strong and investment is insufficient. Agricultural informatization construction lacks top-level design, information silos are relatively common, and the value of data and information is difficult to bring into play. These problems seriously hinder the development of agricultural informatization.

The goals of agricultural informatization development have been determined. By 2020, agricultural informatization work should strive to basically complete informatization infrastructure, achieve breakthroughs in the open sharing of information resources, widely apply information technology, extend public information services to rural areas and farmers, noticeably strengthen the building of the agricultural information talent team, and greatly enhance the level of agricultural management informatization and network security safeguard capacity, so as to better meet the needs of modern agricultural development.

At present and for some time to come, agricultural departments will focus on accelerating the extension of information into villages and households. We will accelerate internet coverage in rural areas so that the fruits of modernization benefit more farmers equally. The focus is to build village-level information service stations with a site, personnel, equipment, broadband, a webpage and sustainable operating capacity. The key is to explore a sustainable development mechanism of government-enterprise cooperation and close integration of public welfare services with commercial services.

We will continue to do a good job in the agricultural Internet of Things trial and demonstration project. The key to developing the agricultural Internet of Things is to reduce costs, resolutely prevent it from being good-looking but useless, and ensure that it is affordable, durable, usable and effective. We must strive to break through core key technologies and strive to make new progress in promotion and application in areas such as agricultural resource and environment monitoring, production process management, agricultural product quality and safety supervision, and agricultural product logistics.

We will promote the open sharing of information resources. Information flow leads technology flow, capital flow and talent flow, and information resources are increasingly becoming the most important factor of production and social wealth. It can be said that data is information and information is data, and data openness leads innovation in management and service models. In the future, the co-construction and sharing of information resources should be taken as a key task of agricultural informatization. We should establish and improve systems such as the agricultural product information collection system, the national agricultural big data platform, the information consultation mechanism and unified centralized information release, gradually realize the openness, disclosure and sharing of agricultural economic information, and fully tap the value of data.

We will vigorously develop agricultural e-commerce. E-commerce has become a new growth point in current economic development and is having a profound impact on the entire process of production, circulation and consumption. It must be seen that agricultural products, especially fresh agricultural products, differ from other commodities and face many restrictive factors. We should follow the trend of e-commerce sinking into rural areas, take the lead in achieving breakthroughs in areas producing advantageous and distinctive agricultural products, combine online and offline, and form a model of two-way flow in which agricultural products go to the city while agricultural production materials and rural consumer goods go to the countryside. We should explore pilot e-commerce transactions at field-side markets and gradually establish a new marketing method for agricultural products with the fewest links, the shortest distance, the lowest cost, the fastest speed and the most transparent information, so that farmers can grow them, store them, sell them and profit from them, and consumers can eat them cheaply, freshly and with confidence.

In addition, infrastructure and conditions must be strengthened. High-speed rail, expressways and airports cannot be built all the way to villages, but the "information superhighway" can absolutely reach villages and households. We should establish the concept of universal service, effectively strengthen rural informatization infrastructure construction, and create conditions for farmers to enjoy the fruits of informatization development just like urban residents. This is a fundamental measure for narrowing the urban-rural digital divide and helping farmers achieve "overtaking on the curve."