The Ministry of Agriculture is planning the "Yinong Plan" to jointly advance the development of the agricultural Internet of Things
In early 2013, the State Council issued a document proposing that by 2015, large-scale demonstration applications of the Internet of Things, including in agriculture, be achieved in multiple fields. After that, the Ministry of Agriculture carried out regional pilot projects for the agricultural Internet of Things in Tianjin, Shanghai and Anhui. According to the characteristics of their respective agricultural industries, the three places carried out pilot demonstrations in key areas, striving to explore and form an agricultural Internet of Things application model that is visible, usable and sustainable, and to promote it nationwide by region and in stages.
Vice Minister of Agriculture Yu Xinrong said, "China's agricultural Internet of Things has achieved rapid development, and its scope of application is becoming increasingly broad. However, compared with other fields such as industry and commerce, it is still in the initial stage, and the gap is obvious." Funding investment is the primary problem troubling the development of the agricultural Internet of Things. Under the circumstances that the overall comparative benefit of agriculture is low and smallholder decentralized operation is the main form, the development of the Internet of Things faces funding difficulties. Bai Siwei, vice chairman of the Internet of Things Industry Association, believes that pilot demonstrations do not mean truly realizing industrialization, and large-scale commercial application still needs time. Agriculture is a weak industry, and the controllability of production conditions is poor. This determines that the application of the Internet of Things in China's agricultural field is clearly different from that in industrial and other fields, resulting in severe funding constraints in its early stage of development.
Yu Xinrong said that the government cannot take on everything and perform a one-man show in developing the agricultural Internet of Things. Relying solely on fiscal funds is not sustainable; the key is to rely on the strength of enterprises. It is necessary to strengthen mechanism innovation, encourage and support relevant research institutions and enterprises to participate in agricultural Internet of Things work, and accelerate the formation of a promotion mechanism featuring government-enterprise cooperation and market-oriented operation. At the same time, it is necessary to better give play to the government's supporting and guiding role, create a good development environment for enterprises, and let enterprises profit.
It is understood that the Ministry of Agriculture is actively planning and seeking to launch the "Yinong Plan" with fiscal support, to systematically advance the nationwide informatization of agricultural production and operation and the construction of an information service system. At the same time, it is studying the establishment of an agricultural information subsidy system and accelerating the inclusion of agricultural Internet of Things related products and equipment in the catalogue of subsidies for the purchase of agricultural machinery, so as to encourage the enthusiasm of social forces such as telecom operators, IT agriculture-related enterprises, and scientific research institutions and universities, and gradually form, under government guidance, diversified investment entities and market-oriented operation and maintenance, jointly advancing the development of the agricultural Internet of Things.