Ministry of Agriculture Selects 331 Varieties and 191 Technologies for Contiguous Poverty-Stricken Areas
The poverty alleviation and prosperity of 17 contiguous poverty-stricken areas, including the Liupan Mountain area, Qinba Mountain area, Wuling Mountain area and Wumeng Mountain area, has captured people's hearts. Since 2013, under the responsibility of the Development Planning Department and the Science and Technology Education Department of the Ministry of Agriculture, and specifically organized by the Science and Technology Development Center of the Ministry of Agriculture, the selection and recommendation of agricultural applicable technologies and varieties for contiguous poverty-stricken areas has been carried out in an orderly manner. To date, 331 agricultural applicable varieties and 191 agricultural applicable technologies have been selected and released to the whole country, playing a clear role in the poverty alleviation work in various contiguous poverty-stricken areas, and effectively promoting the development of local specialty industries and the increase of farmers' and herders' incomes.
It is reported that the 17 contiguous poverty-stricken areas assisted by the Ministry of Agriculture involve 680 counties in 21 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities). These varieties and technologies were selected by the Ministry of Agriculture from 926 varieties and 566 technologies submitted from 23 provinces and municipalities across the country, 4 higher agricultural institutions and 10 units directly under the Ministry, by organizing dozens of experts from relevant industrial technology systems, and agricultural research, teaching and extension units affiliated with the Ministry and provinces.
Contiguous poverty-stricken areas are basically mountainous, with complex climatic and geographical conditions, vastly different environments, and varied animal and plant resources. Each county in each area has different specialty agricultural products. In its selection work, the Ministry of Agriculture does not apply a one-size-fits-all approach nationwide, but rather bases itself on the unique resource advantages of each contiguous poverty-stricken area: when soliciting candidate varieties, it requires coverage of all specialty products of all 680 counties in all 17 areas; when selecting supporting technologies, it fully considers the local agricultural development status and the people's farming and breeding traditions. Although this approach greatly increased the workload, it ensured that every county could find suitable applicable varieties and practical technologies for its locality in the final recommendation catalog.
In the selection work, the Ministry of Agriculture closely focuses on the development of specialty industries in contiguous poverty-stricken areas, aims at promoting industrial upgrading and structural optimization, and emphasizes improving the overall competitiveness and sustainable development capacity of specialty products in the areas. For example, in the process of selecting crop varieties, it requires prioritizing the recommendation of excellent varieties with market competitiveness that can play a leading role in agricultural production in contiguous areas; in terms of supporting technologies, it requires that they not only conform to the current agricultural and economic development status of contiguous areas, but also facilitate contiguous large-scale and intensive development.
Targeted poverty alleviation requires targeted guidance. Poverty-stricken areas have complex environments, relatively low quality of agricultural labor, and vastly different family situations and production technology needs of poor households. This requires that the content of science and technology services in poverty alleviation work must have sufficient diversity and specificity.
For example, in the selection of varieties and technologies, it includes not only field crops such as grain, cotton and oil, and bulk agricultural products such as fruits and vegetables, but also pays more attention to varieties with mountain characteristics such as minor cereals and Chinese medicinal materials; in the selection and recommendation process, the resource characteristics and industrial layout of each county are taken into account. The varieties and technologies selected in this way can adapt to the specific needs of different types of poor households in various places, enabling science and technology services to provide more targeted guidance in the refined poverty alleviation work of establishing files household by household.