Agricultural modernization cannot be achieved without the important support of informatization.

China's agricultural development faces the dual constraints of resources and the market, and there is an urgent need to transform the development mode. The report of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposed promoting the synchronized development of industrialization, informatization, urbanization and agricultural modernization. Correctly understanding and scientifically judging the impact of informatization on modern agricultural development has important theoretical and practical significance for further advancing the work of agricultural informatization.

Current status of agricultural informatization development in China

First, infrastructure has been continuously improved. 100% of townships and 87.9% of administrative villages nationwide have broadband access, the total number of rural internet users has reached 156 million, and mobile phones have maintained a rapid growth trend, with 197.80 units per 100 households.

Second, agricultural information resources have become increasingly abundant. The Ministry of Agriculture has formed 40 information collection channels and more than 8,000 information collection points, and has established a relatively complete information collection and reporting mechanism. At present, China has more than 40,000 agriculture-related websites.

Third, the service system has become increasingly sound. All 31 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) nationwide have competent departments and full-time institutions for agricultural and rural informatization, 97% of prefecture-level and more than 80% of county-level agricultural departments have informatization management and service institutions, more than 70% of townships have established information service stations, and there are more than 1 million village-level information service points.

Fourth, information technology has been gradually advanced. Marked by the intelligent agriculture project of the national Internet of Things demonstration project and the Ministry of Agriculture's Internet of Things regional trial project, China's agricultural production informatization has begun to break new ground, and technologies such as drip irrigation for field crops, environmental monitoring for protected horticulture, and environmental monitoring for livestock and aquaculture have been initially applied.

Agricultural informatization and modernization promote each other and support each other

The development of agricultural informatization requires a certain degree of modern agricultural development as a prerequisite, and the comprehensive advancement of modern agriculture will further promote the development of agricultural informatization. The two promote each other and support each other.

(1) Informatization shows a highly positive correlation with modern agricultural development, contributing nearly 10% to agricultural modernization. The research group calculated the agricultural informatization index and the modern agricultural development index from 1996 to 2010, and found that the positive correlation between the agricultural informatization index and the modern agricultural development index is very obvious, with a correlation coefficient reaching 0.9945. For every one-unit change in the agricultural informatization level index, the modern agricultural development level index changes by 0.0892 units in the same direction, indicating that its contribution to modern agricultural development is very obvious.

(2) Informatization has become an important factor affecting farmers' income. The research group's analysis of data from 1,072 farmer households in six provinces shows that informatization has an important impact on farmers' agricultural operating income. E-commerce websites have an obvious positive impact on farmers' agricultural operating income. The group that had used agricultural e-commerce websites had an average agricultural operating income as high as 29,698 yuan, 70% higher than the agricultural operating income of those who had not used them. Farmers' behavior of querying agricultural information has a very significant impact on agricultural production. The average agricultural operating income of farmers who query agricultural information and those who do not query agricultural information was 21,106 yuan and 10,604 yuan respectively. Farmers who query agricultural information had household agricultural operating income 45.8% higher than those who do not query information. The agricultural operating income of the groups of farmers who had not used and had used agricultural information technology was 18,145 yuan and 20,744 yuan respectively. Information technology has a positive impact on farmers' agricultural income, but the difference is not significant, with the latter 14.3% higher than the former. Farmers in the eastern and central regions are more obviously able to use agricultural information to increase agricultural income. In the eastern and central regions, the household agricultural operating income of farmers who query agricultural information was 45.8% and 29.8% higher respectively than that of farmers who do not query agricultural information, while this variable was not significant in the western region. In the western region, the construction of village-level information service stations is more obviously effective in increasing household agricultural operating income. In the western and central regions, the household agricultural operating income of surveyed farmers whose villages had information service stations was 21.9% and 18.3% higher respectively than that of farmers whose villages did not have information service stations, a more significant effect than that of information service stations in the eastern region.

(3) Development trends of agricultural informatization. First, rural information infrastructure will become increasingly complete, and the urban-rural “digital divide” will further narrow. Second, information technology and agronomic technology will become further deeply integrated. The combination and integration of multiple information technologies has clearly become the development direction of intelligent agricultural production, and the development and application of information technology in agriculture will develop in an integrated, specialized and comprehensive direction. Third, agricultural information services will further show diversified development. The main body of information services will rapidly evolve from being government-dominated to a diversified pattern. The government will continue to play a leading role, various enterprises will become important builders and promoters of agricultural information services, and various intermediary organizations will become important supplements to the construction and promotion of agricultural information services. Fourth, the development and utilization of agricultural information resources will evolve toward big data and cloud computing, providing all-round, three-dimensional data support for modern agriculture.

Policy recommendations for advancing agricultural informatization

Agricultural informatization construction is a complex systematic project. To ensure the smooth progress of all work, it is necessary to improve top-level design in terms of talent, funding, projects and policies.

First, strengthen top-level design. Agricultural departments at all levels should, in accordance with the overall requirements of relevant plans and opinions, focus on the outstanding problems in the current central tasks of agricultural and rural economic development, and, in light of local realities, carry out agricultural informatization construction in a healthy and orderly manner.

Second, focus on talent cultivation. Strengthen the construction of the agricultural informatization discipline system, and use special scientific research projects in the agricultural industry to strengthen the construction of informatization innovation capacity. Strengthen the construction of the market information system. Strengthen the condition-building of information centers in agricultural departments at all levels, intensify training for agricultural administrative management personnel, agricultural production and operation entities, rural information workers and farmers, and continuously improve the information literacy of application entities.

Third, increase investment. Establish and improve an investment guarantee mechanism, and gradually form stable investment channels for informatization. Actively seek support from development and reform departments, and continuously improve the level of investment guarantees for agricultural informatization infrastructure. Actively seek support from finance departments, set up special working funds for informatization, and ensure the normal conduct of informatization promotion work. Fully mobilize the enthusiasm and initiative of social forces, and gradually form a favorable situation of diversified investment entities and market-oriented operation and maintenance under government guidance, jointly advancing agricultural informatization.

Fourth, promote project demonstrations. It is recommended that the state implement special agricultural informatization projects. Agricultural departments at all levels should, with the goal of supporting modern agricultural development, adopt various measures to encourage various agricultural production and operation entities to actively demonstrate and apply modern information technology, focus on exploring informatization development models and sustainable development mechanisms, and create a number of typical examples of agricultural informatization development.

Fifth, apply for information subsidies. With “farmers, family farms, rural cooperative organizations and rural agricultural information service stations (points)” as the main subsidy recipients, with mobile phone text messages, farmers' internet access fees and information service station operating fees, and main agricultural network terminal equipment as the main subsidy contents, with state investment as the guide and local investment as the support, implement agricultural information subsidies.