Ningbo funded college graduates engaged in agriculture

Category: On The Campus
Published: Monday, 30 December 2013 14:17

In 2009, Ningbo released policies to encourage college graduates to engage themselves in agriculture. According to the statistics from Ningbo Municipal Agricultural Bureau, in 2009, the city gave subsidies to only 72 college graduates and this year the number rose to 370. By the end of this year, about 1100 collage graduates will have been funded. In the past five years, the subsidies from Ningbo municipality and the counties and districts have added up to 30 million yuan.

The per capita farmland in Ningbo is bellow 0.6 mu, lower the average of Zhejiang and the country. The people engaged in agriculture are 55 years old on average. An authority of the Ningbo Municipal Agricultural Bureau said, "The modern agriculture of Ningbo needs a large number of new farmers who are well educated, good at technologies and management."

This week, Ningbo Tiansheng Agricultural and Livestock Company recruited five college graduates. At present, the company has over 20 college graduates, including some from Zhejiang University. They work in the fields of farming, experiment and management.

According to the plan, by the end of 2015, there should be at least one college graduate in a specialized farmer cooperative, a municipal-level agricultural service institution, of a large grain production service institution. The city should have at least 1,000 college graduates in the farm and husbandry industries.