Cai Jianming

In: UA Magazine 9 - Financing Urban Agriculture

Agriculture has always occupied a very important position in China's economy. Suburban agriculture (a term often used by Chinese scholars to indicate periurban agriculture), is is fully oriented to urban demand: the production of vegetables, fruit, milk, fish, livestock and poultry, as well as some high value-added grain products such as various beans. It is labour-, and relatively capital-intensive with a high level of productivity and has absorbed many rural labourers. In the late 1990s a new development in China took place. Instead of paying attention to the quantity of food supply, people started to prioritise according to the quality of food supply. In Beijing, as well as in Shanghai, agriculture-oriented science and technology development and demonstration parks were established. Xiaotangshan modern agricultural demonstration park in Beijing is one of these.