Technology Plans for Agriculture Fail to Impress Farmers

Farmers in Hubei province harvest and collect whangkeumbae pears in August. The pears, which can stay fresh for only 10 days after being picked, are refrigerated, which extends their shelf life to four months. While stored, they are sold through an online retailing platform. Photo: Visual China

(Beijing) — China is counting on the booming e-commerce sector to transform the agricultural industry, but the plan has failed to generate much excitement among experts and farmers.

The Ministry of Agriculture recently announced an ambitious plan to increase online sales of agricultural produce by an average annual rate of about 40% to 800 billion yuan ($116 billion) by 2020. Last year, agricultural produce worth 150 billion yuan was traded online.