Recipient Institution:
China Agriculture University
2 Yuanmingyuan Xilu Road
Beijing 100094
China

Tel: (8610) 6289 3015
Fax: (8610) 6281 7605

Project Leader:
Prof. Shen ZuoRui
ipmist@cau.edu.cn

Amount and Duration: USD $ 9,000 / 12 months

Abstract of Project
Qingdao, Shandong Province, China, will be constructed as a prototype county with ICT serving for agriculture and rural development. In the circumstances of more than 2,000 agriculture-oriented web sites spreading all over the country, only a few websites can be estimated to survive for long time. The basic reason is because most of the websites lack a viable marketing mechanism. Generally, they emerged from administrative decree that was issued from the Central Government at the turn of the century and named "e-government" and "e-enterprise" projects. A minority of them are privately-owned or run by joint-stock companies. This situation must be changed, while China faces to the rules and regulations of WTO.

This proposed project is to break the present situation of formalist and almost valueless applications of Internet. We will create a hierarchical model of four levels, Qingdao-Pingdu-Towns-Villages, to help farmers in their marketing activities. The core technology to aid the performance of the hierarchical model of four levels is the AgQingdao system. In addition to Internet as the backbone, the county-run television station, call center, telephone, mobile phone, and village-run broadcast will be used to meet farmers' needs using so-called "all-round ICT service". It will be a participatory approach to the development strategy of information service. All stakeholders should be mobilized to contribute their money, labor, or knowledge, to this project, including government agencies, private sectors, companies, farmers, marketers, technicians and professionals with agricultural information and knowledge.