Every year, the Chinese government’s official Document Number 1 focuses on agriculture. The documents’ themes have included rural–urban development linkages in 2010, water conservancy in 2011, and now agricultural science and technology in 2012. Obviously, China has been keeping an alert eye on its rural and agricultural sectors for some time. But more can be done.

As I stress in my article recently published in China Daily, the country needs to further increase its investment in agricultural R&D—to at least 1.0 percent of agricultural gross domestic product in 2012, 1.5 percent by 2015, and 2.0 percent by 2020. In addition, agricultural research should also be reprioritized to generate technologies that are smallholder friendly, land, water and labor saving as well as low-carbon.

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Tags: agriculture, China, economic growth, R&D
Posted in News