BEIJING, Dec. 9 (Xinhua) -- Themed on full-scale organic agriculture and countywide rural vitalization, the eighth International Forum of Organic Agriculture was convened in Datong City, Shanxi Province in north China during December 6-7.
The forum, jointly organized by Datong People's Government, China Agricultural University, Taiyuan University of Technology and Shanxi Agricultural University, attracted over 80 experts and scholars at home and abroad to exchange views on topics such as the status quo and trend of organic industry, Lingqiu County's practices on full-scale organic agriculture, organic dry-farming, organic community and organic village construction.
Photo shows the opening ceremony of the eighth International Forum of Organic Agriculture.
Recent years, Datong City has poured great efforts into developing organic dry-farming and through farmland quality improvement, research on seeds of improved variety for dry-farming and green development, a batch of demonstration counties, areas and promotion zones came into being in the city.
Zhang Qiang, the city mayor, said on the opening ceremony of the forum that Datong will further leverage the role of organic dry-farming in growing the city's advantages as the place of origin for related organic farm produces and gradually popularize the "Chehe Mode" to build more organic agriculture demonstration zones.
Chehe Mode here refers to such an economic development path as combines organic agriculture, ecotourism and beautiful village construction altogether, represented by the practices of Chehe Village at Hongshileng Town, Lingqiu County of Datong City. Since 2013, Lingqiu County started its organic agricultural demonstration park and zone construction from Chehe Village.
Regardless of other counties in Datong, Lingqiu County developed an economic growth path characterized by full-scale organic agriculture and managed to gradually shed reliance on land selling-based fiscal revenue and energy economy.
By far, Lingqiu County has 60 organically certified agricultural products, more than 30 organic agricultural producers and 6,666.67 hectares of farmland for organic agriculture.
As Zhang introduced, the city will also expand cooperation with renowned universities and research institutions at home and abroad to press ahead with cooperation in production, supply and sales projects related to the entire organic agriculture industry.
Datong City, located in the region with a temperate monsoon climate, boasts unique advantages in developing organic agriculture given its obvious day and night temperature difference and long sunshine time. (Edited by Duan Jing with Xinhua Silk Road, duanjing@xinhua.org)
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