220 Early Agriculture
well as the regional level. In 1993, a leading group for the construction of eco-
counties was approved by the State Council. This cross-ministry organization con-
sists of representatives of the Ministry of Agriculture, the State Planning
Commission, the National Environmental Protection Agency, the State Science
and Technology Commission, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Forestry
and the Ministry of Water Resources.
The need for incentives to encourage farmers to adopt IFS practice, particu-
larly the initial stages, is well recognized, as farmers do not have the resources to
invest in reforming their conventional mono-cultivation system into a diversified
integrated system. There are many forms of incentives in China; some direct and
others indirect. Direct incentives include subsidies and loans to the farmers. Indi-
rect incentives include technical assistance, tax exemption, tax deductions, security
in land tenure, and marketing services. The goal of the incentive schemes is to
encourage eventual self-reliance on the part of the farmer and the community and
should fit in both short- and long-range plans.
By 1999, 51 counties contained trial sites for implementation of IFS. Although
these sites are varied in scale as well as in physical and social conditions, most have
obtained remarkable results. In 2000, another 100 counties were selected as trial
sites. Therefore, China’s IFS, or ecological agriculture, with a long history of devel-
opment in ancient China, has been enriched and upgraded with the progress of
modern science and technology, and has gradually become a real approach for
sustainable agriculture.
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