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China borrowing ideas from Iowa to help modernize farmers

China borrowing ideas from Iowa to help modernize farmers

An Iowa farmer’s farm will be recreated in China

By Diego Flammini
News Reporter
Farms.com

China’s government wants to help its 260 million small-scale farmers modernize and is looking to America’s Corn Belt for inspiration.

The China-US Friendship Demonstration Farm is located in China’s Luanping County and covers about 1,330 hectares.

It’s a partnership that can benefit both countries because China wants to bring its agricultural practices into the present and Iowa sees China as an important trade partner.

"The farm … stands as an example of how we can exchange information and ideas, and maintain a growing and improving trade relationship," said Terry Branstad, current U.S. Ambassador to China and former Governor of Iowa, according to ChinaDaily.

And the Chinese government is so interested in U.S. agriculture that the farm is being remodeled after a farm in Iowa.

The farm in China will look like that of Rick Kimberley’s, a corn and soybean producer with about 4,000 acres from Maxwell, Iowa. The farm’s construction will include replicating his home and other buildings on his farm.

The farm will also include an agricultural education center and demonstration plots for seeds and equipment.

The demonstration farm has been in the works for about five years.

In 2012, then Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping visited Kimberley’s farm and was impressed by the operation.

Jinping concluded that farmers in China need the same kind of setup, much of which includes precision agriculture technology.

“It’s for China to decide what they want to do (with the information and technology),” Kimberley told The Des Moines Register.

China’s plans to modernize its agriculture industry includes a 35-year plan to increase the country’s ethanol production.


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