Agriculture Ministry official points out five major problems in agricultural informatization

An official of the Ministry of Agriculture, in an interview with an Economic Information Daily reporter at the 2013 China New Agriculture Industry Annual Conference a few days ago, said that agricultural modernization has become the weak link in the "new four modernizations," and the core reason is that the building of agricultural informatization is still lagging.
Zhang Hongyu, Director of the Department of Industrial Policy and Regulation of the Ministry of Agriculture, said that data show that China's agricultural labor production efficiency last year was only one-fifth of that of industry. Compared with industrialization, the development of agricultural informatization still appears lagging. The 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China put forward the requirement of synchronized development of the four modernizations, and transforming the weak link in agriculture has become a major challenge facing the government.
According to Zhang Hecheng, Director of the Department of Market and Economic Information of the Ministry of Agriculture, in the agricultural field, there are mainly five problems in the development of informatization: first, there is a "digital divide" between urban and rural areas; second, the foundation for the development and utilization of information resources is weak; third, the phenomenon of "information islands" is very serious; fourth, the application of information technology is still severely lagging; fifth, information services for agricultural enterprises are still in the initial stage. (Lin Yuan)